


Why Won't You Die?!

by Chairtastic



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2018-12-03 20:25:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 24
Words: 60,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11539806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chairtastic/pseuds/Chairtastic
Summary: Xehanort was memetic in his power and manipulations.  His plans were gems of absolute beauty, but inflexible.  So when people like Aqua and Sora, and others kept refusing to die, it presented… problems.





	1. The Illusion of Time

**Author's Note:**

> This story was motivated by spite. I saw how underutilized Aqua was in KH fanfiction outside of romance, and the lack of non-romance AUs. I deeply enjoy the Kingdom Hearts series, and wish I still had the means to play them, so me writing this fic is a means of scratching that itch. Because this was a minor issue in other stories - I am writing this partly to tell a story, partly for my enjoyment, and partly out of elemental spite as mentioned above.
> 
> You, the reader, will have the best experience reading this story if you have a working knowledge of the Kingdom Hearts setting, but if you don’t I will try to tell the story in such a way that you can learn. This is a hefty AU, though, and not all the changes will be visible at the start. For one, this being a fanfic, I can incorporate worlds and characters that the game developers don’t have the licensing to use. No, there will be no Star Wars or Marvel. But there will be some of the Disney live action movies.

\--

Chapter 1: The illusion of time.

Deep in the dark, a storied heroine fought for her life.

A warrior from the realm of light, who fell to the realm of darkness to save a precious friend, she moved grace, speed, and surprising strength. Her weapons were of magic; fire, ice, and lightning used to lay enemies to waste, and the blooming of flowers to mend her wounds. And the instrument by which she performed these wonders was a strange sword styled after a key. She wore no armor, her clothes were stylishly designed to swish and catch the winds, so for her protection she used a strange barrier made of glowing hexagons.

She was Aqua, Keyblade Master, and she refused to die.

The creatures of the realm of darkness - bizarre things that moved unpredictably, often gangly in appearance and formed of the darkness itself - did not pose much of a threat to Aqua. But there was no end to them. They emerged from the dark in small armies as she traversed the realm, looking for a way out.

She didn’t know the name for them, or if they had a name. They showed no capacity to reason, coming at her with vicious determination. They were not mindless, as more than once she had learned by cruel chance, they could think and plan and organize. The most challenging threats didn’t come from the great and terrible beasts, but from hives of the smallest creatures who came at her as one.

But either alone or together, they all met their end by her.

\--

In the realm of light, things happened in a chain of events. A spark ignites a fire, which generates heat and light. But this was not true in the dark world. The spark, the heat, the light, they all happened at once. They persisted because without time, there was no measure of how much fuel they had left. More than once, she had passed through areas to see another her, doing things she had done previously, or something new. And when her journey brought her to those places, it was those visions that told her how to continue to progress.

For Aqua, if it were not another means the realm of darkness used to torment her, it would have been a profoundly interesting phenomena to study. And if the realm of darkness were not actively trying to consume her, she could have found it beautiful. Haunting, unsettling, and utterly [i]wrong[/i] to her, but beautiful. But those two things [i]were[/i] true, and there were people she needed to find in the realm of light.

Sometimes, she thought the realm of darkness was [i]alive[/i] and acting in response to her presence. Most often, it would be small things: a bridge appearing when she had defeated dwellers in the dark, barriers that sprung up so she couldn’t flee from a particularly strong foe, or a treasure that she had to struggle to reclaim. But sometimes, the realm would take drastic action.

One such time was when she first witnessed the realm of darkness briefly fill itself with light. The terrain of the realm of darkness shifted around a pillar of light that burned through and struck something deep below. Before there had been rocky paths and outcroppings topped with a fine white powder and often split open to reveal luminous crystal with a miasma of purples, reds, and blacks filling the space between. And when the light passed, there was a pale castle towering in the distance, a forest and a town filling the space around it.

The road to the town started right at Aqua’s feet, where she had previously stood at a cliff with nowhere to go. It had been the first time the roads in the realm of darkness had a definitive end. She had been wondering what game it had been playing. And then she witnessed it.

Something had gone terribly wrong somewhere in the realm of light, Aqua understood. For here in her view was the defining feature of a world from that realm, evidently consumed by darkness and brought through. She [i]knew[/i] it was some sick game the realm of darkness was playing on her, but with nowhere else to go forward, she started on the road.

\---

While she walked the cobbled road to the distant town, and even more distant castle, Aqua pondered. Since she’d let herself fall into the realm of darkness, where time didn’t exist, time had to have passed in the realm of light. She still looked exactly the same as when she’d fallen. She’d gained no scratches from any of the claws of the dwellers in the dark, required no food or sleep or other such things, and unless a dweller in the dark stole them, her magical items would be there in her pockets again even after she’d used them.

If she could get out, back to the realm of light, would time extract from her a toll equal to all the things she’d faced in the dark? Would she suddenly starve to death in the moment she returned? As she approached the town, she stopped thinking such things, to be on the lookout.

The town was in near perfect condition, but devoid of life. The streets were empty, the houses vacant. Thankfully the lamps lining the cobblestone street still burned and provided light and warmth, however little. It contrasted the realm of darkness she’d come to know enough to remind her of home.

Enough to remind her of her friends.

Which in turn was enough to motivate her to look for a way back, despite whatever toll time would exact upon her. Aqua continued through the town, lamenting how it had changed since she had last seen it, but pressed on to the road toward the castle.

The castle was incredibly tall, built from a pearlescent white stone, with no curtain wall for defense. But it prominently featured a clock tower, so large that even from far away Aqua could make out the embellishments on the facade. Aqua and her friends had come to the world where the castle resided to investigate the darkness, though Aqua had been intending to retrieve her youngest friend, Ventus. He had run away from home in pursuit of the third part of their trio: Terra.

She could almost see them, and it warmed her heart to think of them. It was only after the sensation endured that she realized it was not sentiment she was seeing ahead of her on the road to the castle, but actually them.

Terra, the straight backed burly warrior, with his billowing pants styled after their master, and spiked brown hair; Ven younger than either Aqua or Terra, with spiked blonde hair, and baggy clothes of black and white. Aqua chased after them, reaching her hand out and began to shout for them.

But proved to be a trick of the realm of darkness, as the road under her began to collapse with a chiming bell, as did Terra and Ven faded away as if they’d never been. Magic-enhanced instincts let her form a platform of light under her feet to propel herself into the air quickly. The road to the castle was falling away, and the land on either side with it. For a moment, before momentum stopped her upward ascent, Aqua considered retreating. With each chime of the bell, more of the road fell away into an abyssal miasma.

But then, a point of light came from the base of the castle, and the chiming stopped. Similarly, the road stopped its self-destruction, halting in mid-air. The light persisted and gave Aqua a view of a distant figure standing at the grand staircase of the castle. The first person she had encountered since falling to the realm of darkness, she realized.

Barely thinking before she moved, Aqua dashed forward with her magic, landing upon the floating world-fragments, and leaping between them toward her new goal. The collapse had started at the side Aqua had begun from, so after a few leaps, she was back upon semi-normal ground. But her running would not be fast enough to her liking.

She called forth her key-shaped weapon, it appeared in her hand with a chime and explosion of light. With grace, she swung it forward, and created a projectile of snow and wind that traveled far faster than Aqua. As it passed, it froze the ground in a line, which Aqua then skated along with little difficulty.

The grand staircase was still as breathtakingly beautiful as she remembered. Seemingly implausibly large and lavish, lit up with colors that turned the white stone golden, and a stately red carpet; it was a warm memory that Aqua was glad to revisit, but horrified to see in the realm of darkness at the same time.

She half expected the figure casting the light to be one of the residents of the castle, but the half of her that did not was vindicated. The mysterious person was a man, in an all-black ensemble which hid his figure; a hooded long coat, gloves, and boots. The only thing that served to define him was a peculiar card in his hand raised aloft, from which the light emitted. As Aqua approached, he lowered his raised arm, and the bell tower’s toll resumed. Behind her, she heard and glanced the road falling away.

“An elegant capitalization upon the circumstance, dear lady,” cried the figure, ascending the stairs while cards appeared in his gloved fingers. He used them as a fan, reclining upon the railing at the first landing.

Aqua noted a strange accent in his voice, and kept her keyblade out in case the stranger was part of some grand trick by the realm of darkness. “Thank you,” she called, letting her excitement to see another person show in her voice and face, even while she braced herself for betrayal. “That was quite the show, stopping time like that.” The figure stood up from the railing and collapsed his hand of cards into one before vanishing them entirely.

“Noticed that, did you?” Aqua watched the stranger quickly begin to pace upon the landing. “For a realm where time doesn’t exist, to enforce time in such a way is tantamount to cheating.” He stopped and turned his hooded gaze to Aqua. “And I [i]abhor[/i] cheaters, dear lady.”

“I’m Aqua,” the Keyblade Master introduced herself, resting her free hand upon the badge of honor upon her chest. The Mark of Mastery, a heart symbol with three blunted points emerging from the base. “How did you get here?” She left the question open ended, to question both how the figure had gotten to the realm of darkness, and the castle of dreams.

“A most unsavory mode of transport, a doorway into the darkness. The same those vile monsters that have hounded you so use.” The man extended his hand, and a curved pillar of pure darkness emerged from the floor. Aqua tensed, feeling the darkness in the structure trying to reach out to her, even from the great distance. The figure lowered his arm and the ‘portal’ collapsed into nothing. “I would offer you a way home through such a portal, but it is ill-advised to attempt passage without a form of protection.”

Aqua’s hand went to her upper arm, where previously a trigger to call upon armor that would do exactly such a thing had been. The sacrifice had spared her friend the fate she had endured, but its absence made her present situation all the worse. “Is that why you’re covered up?”

“Quite so, dear lady Aqua.” The man snapped his fingers and pointed at her in the same motion. “But I’m afraid I was unable to secure a change of clothes for you, my lady. It was quite difficult enough to find my way here,” he gestured grandly to the castle, “without being stopped.”

“Who was going to stop you, and why would you want to be here?” Her grip upon the keyblade tightened ever so slightly. If this were a trick, playing on her desperation to get out, she could expect the betrayal to come at any second.

“To gamble with my life, and see you safely to the realm of light.” Aqua squinted at him, prompting him to hold his hands up. “The distance between us is not happenstance. You are by your very nature, a poison for schemers. And in this dark realm, which plays games with its food for so long, I do indeed gamble by being here. At any moment, you may decide to strike me down, and I am not so deluded to think I could defeat you.”

“What would be worth such a gamble?” He was afraid of her. She could tell from his body language. Any time she moved even slightly closer, he moved away. So she tested him, and took step after step closer, until she was at the base of the stairs. After a few backward steps, he appeared to find some resolve, and refused to go back any farther.

“The same thing which motivated you to gamble, and end up here.” Aqua paused, and considered the man while tilting her head. She could almost make out the face of the man under the hood. “We have a mutual enemy, you and I. And his schemes endanger our friends.” The figure scoffed and looked away. Aqua heard him mutter, in a tone perhaps he didn’t expect her to pick up: “They would be so utterly smug to hear me call them that.”

“His schemes should have been put to an end,” Aqua said, an edge in her voice.

“We are of one mind in that regard, my lady. But our enemy is a cheater. And I [i]abhor[/i] cheaters.” Aqua took a step onto the staircase, prompting the figure to step backward and speak rapidly. “My proposal is thus; I secure passage for you to the realm of light, and place you in the most opportune time to meddle with our enemy’s schemes. And together we will save our friends from the fates that have been dealt to them.”

“Tell me more about [i]how[/i] you plan to do this.” Aqua took another step up the stairs. The figure took a step backward again and stumbled upon the second flight of stairs. In a moment, with her magic, Aqua cleared the rest of the stairs up to the landing, standing tall with her weapon drawn while the figure was sprawled upon the stairs. She could see a bit of his face under the hood, light skinned and a platinum-blond goatee and moustache. “And tell me why I should trust a man who won’t tell me his name.”

“Time does not exist here, so you can bypass the usual rules for traveling time by using it,” the man quickly explained while trying to stand. “And the worlds are not stable anymore. So I would send you to a world under attack by the darkness, when it is being drawn in, and you should be able to slip back into the realm of light that way.”

The news gave her pause. Worlds under attack by the darkness… could mean many things. But she had in front of her an opportunity to get back. To see Ven and Terra again. To see the stars again. She relaxed her grip, and the keyblade vanished from her hand.

Seeing her unarmed seemed to help the man’s fright. He stood up and took a moment to straighten his coat, while Aqua watched critically. “It is not a pleasant situation,” he admitted. “But the only other means of getting you out would require us playing into our enemy’s hands. Will you accept my offer?”

“Tell me your name,” Aqua said for a third time. She already knew she would accept. If it were some game of the realm of darkness, she would play along and come out victorious.

“Luxord,” the man responded.

“Luxord. I accept your terms. Now let’s go.” It took the hooded man a moment to parse her acceptance and begin leading the way up the stairs and through the castle. Still suspicious, but at the same time weary of the realm of darkness, she followed.

\--

In a world where time didn’t have substance, it was pointless to dwell on how long it took to reach their destination. They navigated the realm of darkness beyond the castle of dreams, the pleasant but lifeless view being replaced with the realm’s natural environment. The thing which Aqua most noticed about the journey was that none of the dwellers in the dark came out to attack them.

“Strange,” she commented while looking around them. She could feel the presence of the dwellers, they had an unmistakable aura of darkness detectable mostly by how different it was to the realm itself. “None of the creatures have attacked us.”

“The Heartless,” Luxord informed her without breaking stride, “are animalistic in their mental faculties. They obey the strongest, which in their reckoning is me. And I have told them not to bother you.” Aqua picked up on the word choice right away and slowed her walk a bit.

“Bother [i]me[/i]? Why not you?” The word Heartless he’d used to describe the creatures troubled Aqua greatly. It made her think of memories of stolen hearts, and her friend’s mistakes in the past.

“The Heartless are born from the darkness in people’s hearts. And these ones have yet to escape into the realm of light, so your heart is the first they’ve seen. It awakens the instinct to feed in them. My heart is beyond their ability to detect.”

“So if I’d had my armor,” Aqua thought aloud while catching up to Luxord, “perhaps they wouldn’t have bothered me….”

“Quite possible. The shielding effects might have protected you from their influence altogether.” Suddenly, Luxord stopped in his tracks. “We’re here, it will happen now.” The more colorfully dressed woman looked around, and saw no change in the environment… until she looked up. The distant roof of the realm of darkness was giving way to a disk of light.

“How did you know?”

“Time is illusory here, the world currently falling to darkness in the realm of light has always been here, in the realm of darkness. It has already fallen, and been restored, countless times. The realm of darkness is merely allowing us to perceive it.” A powerful wind span up, as if there was a hole in the world at the center of the disk, and the pressure sought to equalize. Luxord swept his arm out, and an entire deck of cards flew out, carried by the updraft. At certain points they stopped and grew enormous in size. “This pathway should get you high enough to where you can leap into the falling world.” The cloaked man quickly moved out of Aqua’s way, presumably to give her room for a running start. “You will only have a few minutes in the realm of light to escape before the world collapses entirely, hurry!”

With nonexistent time apparently of the essence, Aqua rushed forward. With her magic to let her dash through the air and create platform by which to redirect her momentum once she jumped from card to card, it was a simple matter of scaling them. The higher she got, the stronger the updraft. Closer to the light, Aqua could faintly make out shapes in the disk. An almost familiar location.

Her hope at finally being free conflicted with the knowledge that the world she was using to escape was about be destroyed. But if she acted fast enough, perhaps she could save it.

Aqua lept from the final card platform, not even needing assistance to be lifted up by the updraft. The disk of light obscured her vision as she passed through, but she could see some sort of door that the updraft was rapidly propelling her toward. An oval door with no handle.

She crossed her arms in front of her head and a shimmering barrier took shape, just before Aqua struck the door. However, she made one fatal error.

Aqua had assumed she was going to hit it with enough force to break through. Instead, she found herself pinned to the door by the updraft. The force of the air current continued to grow, until at last, the door was forced open under the strain. There was little she could see as the force of the current pushed her through.

A cave covered in white pictures. Roots growing into the walls. A boy with ridiculously huge yellow shoes holding his arms wide as if to catch someone-

Unfortunately, momentum had positioned Aqua so that her head and the boy’s were on equal level. So rather than him catching her as she flew out of the door, she ended up headbutting him by accident, knocking them both out to be carried away by the lingering wind.

\----


	2. Out of the rain, into the gutter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our heroes meet, and horror is discovered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Divergence starting right away this time.

 

 

 

 

\---Chapter 2: Out of the rain, into the gutter.

 

On an island set aside for the children to play, a teenage boy fought for his life.

 

A young man not even begun on the road to adventure, who planned to find a way to other worlds with his dear friends, he fought through the strange, twitchy beasts invading his home with only the beginnings of skill.  At first, his weapon had been a wooden sword, with which he had play fought with other young people; a toy weapon proved less than useful against the creatures who brushed it off, or went flush with the ground to evade him.

 

He was Sora, and he refused to die.

 

The creatures invading his home were almost bug-like.  They had huge eyes of solid yellow, and curly antennae sprouting from their heads.  But their clawed hands and developed feet let them lash out at Sora, and chase him when he was forced to flee.  The creatures appeared seemingly from nowhere, starting as inky puddles on the ground that rose and took shape.  He had no armor, his clothes had been designed to catch attention but be sturdy enough for roughhousing. And when his toy sword was finally smashed, he had no defense at all.

 

At least, until he saw his friend standing alone on a small tidal island nearby.  Rushing across the bridge, Sora had to hope his friend, Riku, had answers.

 

\--

 

The island had been the daily playground of Sora and his friends.  Built around an enormous tree, it was the product of generations working to create a fun spot.  The children who played there had years worth of playing on the two beaches on either side of the island, the deck where they could watch the fishermen work, the room carved into the giant tree’s trunk, or the shack which connected to paopu island.

 

Paopu island was a tidal island on which grew the paopu tree, whose fruit had mystical powers if the legends were to be believed.  Those who ate the fruit with another would find their destinies intertwined.  Forever.  Sora’s mother had said that the myth had been the cause for the name of their archipelago: Destiny Islands.

 

Now it was the scene of horror, with monsters from the dark rising up in waves, and a bizarre orb hanging in the sky above.  A black orb with a core of red and orange, its surface twisted and churned like the surface of a star Sora had seen in schoolbooks.  And Riku was standing directly below it like nothing was wrong.

 

He thought Riku must have had a plan, that would at least get them and Kairi back to the mainland where the grown ups could solve the problem.

 

He was mistaken.

 

\--

 

When he arrived, Riku had been rambling about doors and darkness, before a pool of some sort of oil-like substance appeared beneath him and started to pull him under.  Riku’s last action before being engulfed by the dark was to reach out to Sora, not for help, but to take Sora with him.

 

The exact pose Sora had seen in a bizarre dream he’d had the day before.

 

Sora had actually tried to reach out to him, but something had gone wrong.  The pool of oil… darkness, Sora guessed, had been trying to push him  _out_ , away from Riku.  His friend didn’t seem to notice how Sora was struggling to even reach out to him.  Finally, when Sora thought he’d grabbed Riku’s hand, as the darkness had nearly enveloped them both, a light sprung forth.

 

Suddenly, Sora was standing alone on the island.  The darkness pushing against him was gone, so he stumbled to regain balance.  Riku was gone, and in his hand he was holding a peculiar weapon.  A long bar of metal with protrusions at the end resembling a cross between a crown and the teeth of a key, a vivid yellow guard around the handle, and a dangling charm at the end resembling three circles.  Some unbidden memory told him it was called ‘keyblade’.

 

Sora stood for a moment, processing that his friend had vanished, and now he was alone.

 

Until he remembered: Kairi was somewhere on the island too!  He had to go find her, so he put aside the happenings with Riku to run across the bridge and look for her.  Armed with the keyblade, he was able to wound the invading monsters at last.  They contorted in pain from the blunt impact of the keyblade upon them, and exploded into clouds of black on the second.

 

It was a struggle to fight his way through the horde to look around the island, but as he ran out of places to look he started to run out of monsters to destroy as well.

 

The secret place was the only spot left to look, and the monsters had all gone.  Panting with exertion, and struggling with the weight of a metal weapon, he continued towards the cave next to the waterfall, and found a strange sight.

 

A pointed double door and its frame, standing perfectly upright in front of the brush-covered cave opening that led to the secret place.  Sora questioned if he had somehow missed the obvious sign of something happening, but quickly focused on opening the door.

 

Inside the secret place, in the chamber where the mysterious door sat, in the room where the walls were covered in drawings from as far back as Sora’s grandpa’s grandpa’s time, he found Kairi.  Her fashionable outfit, and short red hair would give her away even if Sora hadn’t known her so well.  She was the only one in the entire island to have red hair in that particular shade.

 

“Kairi,” Sora shouted, hefting the keyblade onto his shoulder to better run with it.  As he approached, the girl turned around to look at him, which drove Sora to halt.  Kairi’s eyes were glazed over, her mouth hung slightly open, and she seemed to be held up like a puppet.

 

“Sora…,” was Kairi’s monotone response.  She started to reach out to him when the door that had been the inspiration for many ghost stories burst open.  A torrent of smoke and wind emerged, knocking Kairi off her feet.  Sora held his arms up to catch her, but as he did Kairi’s image faded away into one of a much older, blue-haired woman flying toward him.

 

A sharp pain in his forehead knocked Sora out quickly.

 

\--

 

Aqua snapped to wakefulness when she struck the ground.

 

Her vision was blurry for a moment before she instinctively cast a Cure spell to mend whatever injury she was suffering.  It was then when she noticed where he hand was: in sand.  Real sand, not a powdery substance too fine to identify.  Joy filled her heart for a moment.  She was back!

 

And then a monumental crashing noise reminded her that the world she found herself in was dying.  She hastily stood up, and looked around for hostiles.  During the review she noticed that the world had been reduced to one landmass, floating in empty space, covered in sand and detritus while a maelstrom of world fragments spun about them.

 

_The air feels like home did, when I took Ven there…._ , Aqua thought to herself.

 

An orb of raging darkness hung above, from which a dweller in the dark, a Heartless, had fallen.  It was one she had seen in the realm of darkness; as big as a building, in the a roughly humanoid shape, it walked on the tips of its toes, with a heart-shaped gap taking up most of its chest, ineffectual wings on its back, and a tangled mass of tentacles hiding all of its face save yellow eyes.

 

It would have been no trouble to fight and destroy it for Aqua, if she didn’t have someone in need of her help.  The boy she had struck as she passed through the door lay on the ground unconscious.  He looked so much like a brunette Ventus it startled her at first, but his clothes were mostly red, and white, with clownish yellow shoes.

 

And a keyblade.

 

It was far simpler than the Master’s Defender Aqua wielded, but most keyblades began as such.  The weapon hadn’t removed itself, so it still perceived its owner as in danger.  As the wind roared and moved the unconscious teenager slightly from its strength, Aqua could see why.

 

She weighed her options, putting herself between the Heartless and the boy.  His face seemed familiar to her, but there was no time for memory diving in the face of monsters.  “You aren’t stupid,” she said to the darkness-born beast.  “You know I’m stronger than you.   _Leave!"_   Luxord’s words, about Heartless obeying the strongest drove her to try and make the dweller in the dark retreat.

 

It did not oblige, pulling a great fist back to punch down into Aqua, meeting her shimmering barrier.  Once all the punch’s inertia had been expended, Aqua sweeped her keyblade in front of her.  The hexagons composing the barrier exploded outward in all directions.  Some destroyed fragments of the world caught in the maelstrom, others tore through the ground, but one drove itself into the Heartless’ fist, and traveled up its arm to explode out its shoulder.

 

Ethereal darkness leaked from the monster’s wounds, and its arm began to fade away into nothing.  Aqua evaluated the effort it had taken to counter the dark dweller’s attack like that, versus how much it was willing to continue fighting, and the rate the world was fading away at.

 

When the wind drawing everything into the orb of darkness was strong enough to lift the boy off the ground, she decided that getting him to safety was more important than one destroyed Heartless.  The monster was still recoiling in agony over its lost limb, so she had no trouble grabbing the boy, throwing his keyblade-bearing arm over her shoulder, and then pointing the keyblade she wielded forward.  A circle of light appeared in the air, closing on the point of her weapon before firing out and striking some invisible surface.

 

A multicolored portal appeared, and without hesitation Aqua, still carrying the boy, ran into it - and emerged in the Lanes Between.

 

\--

 

The Lanes Between were darker than she remembered.

 

They had always been far too close to the realm of darkness to travel without protection, but as she flew through the starry tunnel, she could feel the darkness reaching out to her.  But her light managed to drive it back.  Whether the boy would be protected by her light, she would have to see when he woke.  To minimize the potential damage done to his heart, she focused on finding a nearby world to safely exit.

 

The tower of Yen Sid was a perfect place, as if the stars had aligned to give her precisely what she needed.

 

“Please,” she spoke aloud while placing a Cure spell on the boy.  He looked so familiar to her, but she couldn’t place his face.  “Hold on until we can reach Master Yen Sid.”  She guessed the boy to be one of Yen Sid’s apprentices, or perhaps Terra’s.  But looking at the boy’s keyblade, she noticed a familiar symbol as the keychain.  Three circles attached to each other.  A bit of true joy appeared on her face as she solved the puzzle.  “That’s Mickey’s symbol, he must be your master!”

 

A master was the one who taught a keyblade wielder how to use their power, and acted as authorities on matters relating to the safety of the worlds.  Aqua was a master herself, and in the time between she last saw him, her friend Mickey must have become a master as well.  She giggled to herself at the alliteration of Master Mickey Mouse.

 

Free of the realm of darkness, and given a moment to think, her joy dimmed.  Her thoughts turned to Terra, and Ven, and if their situation had improved or worsened without her.  Perhaps Mickey’s apprentice would have information for her when he woke.

 

At last, the Lane to Yen Sid’s tower opened and allowed her to pass through.  The boy was surprisingly light, she noted as she stepped out of the portal.  She almost dropped him at the scene of horror that met her.  Master Yen Sid’s tower had rested upon a floating island, dotted with stately trees, and surrounded by a nebula to give the constant night sky a golden-orange glow.

 

But where there had been a crooked and obviously magical tower, there was now a dusty ruin.  The conical tops to the tower and its side buildings lay in pieces along the ground, the body of the structure was scorched and appeared to have been the site of an explosion.  Stairs that would lead into the magical place instead led to an empty doorframe, and only a fraction of the grand staircase that had been within survived.  The island was devoid of life, the grass and trees long dead.  Even the nebula was gone, turned into a dust cloud from which a stark white light emerged.

 

As if that were not enough horror, Aqua looked to the night’s sky and saw that there were less than a tenth of the stars she remembered shining.  Each star was a world, her master had taught them, and there were  _so few left_....  An overwhelming dread filled Aqua.

 

“How… how long was I gone?”  Yen Sid was gone, hundreds of thousands of worlds were gone, and heart-hunting monsters roamed freely in the realm of light.  “What happened?  I don’t….”  Aqua paused and took a deep breath.  She  _refused_  to panic given the situation.  “No use in that.  Need to get to work.”

 

She was Aqua, Keyblade Master, and she resolved to put an end to the nightmare she had come back to.

 

\----

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RIP Yen Sid.


	3. Fate is not kind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sora and Aqua talk, and Aqua angsts just a little.

 

 

\---Chapter 3: Fate is not kind.

 

When Sora woke up, the first thing he noted was that the air smelled different.  It was like the smell after a bonfire, but to the exclusion of all else.  It made it a bit easier to understand then, when he opened his eyes and sat up, that he most definitely wasn’t on his island anymore.  At least, he  _hoped_  his island hadn’t become a blasted and ruined floating island in the thin air with the clouds far.  _far_  below.

 

He had been laying under a ruined blue conical roof, with a destroyed portion acting as the impromptu doorway.  After exiting and looking around to get his bearings, Sora came to a profound conclusion: “I’m in another world.”  For a while, excitement dominated his mind and drove him to think about the adventures he would get up to, and the look on Riku’s face when he-

 

It was then that Sora remembered Riku was gone.  Disappeared.  And so was Kairi.  There was no sign of the blue-haired woman, so for the moment he was alone.  He went wandering, only noting the lack of the keyblade as an afterthought.  The weapon appeared in his hand in a flash of light, and then vanished again.  “So,” he slowly said to himself while walking, “it’ll appear when I need it?”

 

He walked into another, narrower roof cone due to not paying attention.  The surface cracked and groaned from the petty impact, and almost caused it to break apart.  But it held firm, which Sora was grateful for.  Someone had already lost their house without him accidentally breaking the pieces.

 

Indistinctly, he heard voices speaking from the ruin that all the fragments appeared to originate: a stairway leading to an empty door, a room without walls and a fragmented staircase.  At the top of the stairs, he saw two people, which spelled hope.  One was the blue-haired woman, and the other was a man entirely in black clothes.  Perhaps they would be able to answer some questions.  Sora rushed to the ruin, and ascended.

 

They didn’t seem to hear him at first, talking to each other.  “... That can’t be true,” the woman said, sad and quiet.  “It can’t have been all for… nothing.”

 

“Why can’t it?”  The hooded man asked in a strange accent.  He gestured flippantly to the ruins.  “Is not this devastation and the scarcity of stars enough to convince you?”  Sora hid around the curve in the great staircase, thinking it rude to interrupt.  He noted that the man’s coat was… peculiar.  It looked to be a trench coat, but modified; far shorter than a trench coat should have been, stopping just above his knees in the back and sweping up to barely past the waist in the front.  “I can’t try to convince you any more than I have, Aqua.  Here,” the man turned to the woman and held out his hands.  Black and purple light bloomed in them, before fading to reveal two stacks of clothes topped with shoes.  “This will let you travel between the worlds safely until you can find a ship.”

 

“Thank you,” the woman, Aqua, graciously said while taking the tiems.  “The other man, Luxord, said these clothes protect against the darkness.  How…?”

 

“It’s an odd magic enchantment, they act like darkness sponges.  Here, I’ll show you how the enchantment works, and how to tell when you need to replace them.”  Sora stared, bewildered by the happenings.  The man waved his hand about, talking in fancy words Sora couldn’t understand, while shapes of light danced around between them.  As if to remind him that he was snooping, the stones forming the stairs shifted and cracked under his feet.  Abruptly the man vanished from where he had been standing.

 

Aqua seemed surprised by this, but not nearly as surprised as Sora when a black-gloved hand appeared on his shoulder.  “Aaah!”  He jumped in fright, into the woman’s view and away from the man who had appeared behind him.

 

“I understand that this is a lot to take in,” the figure said.  Sora could just make out some of his features under the hood, a strong chin, brown eyes, and styled brown hair.  “But snooping is still rude, young man.”

 

“Hey, it’s okay,” Aqua’s voice tried to sooth as she descended the stairs quickly.  “He’s a friend of mine-”  Sora turned to look at her, confused.  When she met his eyes she stopped, frozen, and dropped the clothes she’d been holding, her expression stunned and a little horrified.  “Vanitas.”

 

“Um,” Sora started, rubbing the back of his head.  “No, my name is Sora.”  Aqua shook herself out of her state, looking at him again and sighing in relief.

 

“Sorry, you uh.  Reminded me of someone I’d met before.”  It took Sora a minute, but seeing her fancy clothes and hearing her voice had sparked a memory in him.  A stranger who visited the island years ago, and gave him an important job.  But he couldn’t remember what.

 

“It’s okay, we  _have_  met before.”  Again, Aqua was stunned before he explained.  “You came to the islands?  Years ago?”

 

“... That was  _you?_ ”  She seemed outright shocked, crouching down to look at Sora’s face from multiple angles.  He’d gotten the exact treatment from older relatives as he’d grown up and it annoyed him to see it in a stranger.  “You’ve… grown so much.”

 

“It has been years, Aqua.”  They both became aware of the hooded figure again.  He was efficiently picking up the clothes Aqua had dropped and folding them anew.  “People get older.”  His tone was something Sora had heard often too, the way his mother talked to his grandparents when they were being forgetful.  It made Aqua frown, presumably she knew the tone too.

 

“That’s not what I meant,” was her stiff reply as she stood up.

 

“I know.  A bit of humor to try and lighten the mood.”  The clothes exchange happened for a second time.  “If I had a ship available, I’d lend it to you, not like I need it to get around.  But I’ll have my fellow Organizers look around, see if someone can be called on to help you until you find your armor, and get some made for the young man.”

 

Sora looked between them, confused.  “Excuse me,” he cut in.  “I’ve got some questions.  Where are we?  What happened to my island?  My friends?”  The adults looked at him, and from Aqua’s expression of sorrow, he didn’t expect the answer to be good.

 

“I’ll leave you to it, Aqua.  It was nice to see you again.”

 

“Goodbye, your Highness,” Aqua said to the man as he vanished in a pillar of thorns and darkness.  Now alone, she set the clothes down and sat upon the ruined stairs.  “Sora… sit down.  There’s some things I need to explain.”

 

The last time someone had taken that tone with him was when his mother told him she and Tidus’ dad were getting married, so he didn’t expect good things as he sat down next to the woman.

 

\---

 

Sora got the feeling that Aqua wasn’t good at talking, as he listened to her.  She was stiff, using flowery words he’d only heard Kairi and other girls use when talking about romance and gunk.  But every time he didn’t understand, she’d stop, back up and ask him the parts that confused him so she could explain it another way.

 

The monsters that had invaded his island were called Heartless, creatures from another world - the realm of darkness.  She told him that they stole people’s hearts, and what had happened to his island was they’d stolen the heart of the world.

 

“But… what happened to my friends, Riku and Kairi?”  Sora’s question stunned Aqua yet again, and she stopped to think quickly.

 

“Kairi…,” she started, hesitant.  “Was she a girl with red hair, blue eyes, and a calming presence about her?”  Sora nodded emphatically, which only seemed to confuse Aqua more.  “But she was in Radiant Garden, how did she…?”

 

“She came from another world, appeared during a meteor shower.”  He scrunched up his face thinking about it.  “A… little bit after you showed up.  Maybe a couple months?”

 

“Months….”  The blue-haired woman looked away from Sora, choking on the word.  When she looked back at him, she had a stern look, like she was being angry to keep from being sad.  Kairi made that face a lot when people kept pestering her about where she came from.  “Riku and Kairi’s hearts were strong, I don’t think the darkness would have consumed them.”

 

“But everyone else,” Sora said with growing realization.  “They’re gone?”  Aqua’s facade struggled, but she held the stern look.

 

“Yes.”  Sora thought about all the people of the islands.  All gone.  His breathing started to pick up, thinking about his mother, his other friends on the island, distant relatives he hadn’t seen in years, the nice people in their town.  But Riku and Kairi might still be there.  He could find them, perhaps.

 

“So… how do we find them?”  Aqua’s stern look softened ever so slightly with a bit of sadness.

 

“We go to the worlds, as many as we can find, and look for them.  And trust in our hearts to lead them back to us.”  It sounded sappy, but Sora felt a warmth in his chest at the thought.

 

“That sounds like it’ll take a long time.”  Aqua’s stern expression faded entirely with a wide smile.

 

“Yeah.  So we better get started soon.”  At Sora’s confused expression she continued.  “My… friend told me you just now got that keyblade.  So you’re going to need someone to teach you how to use it.  I’m looking for my friends too, so if you want I could teach you.”  Sora considered, before holding his hand out to summon the keyblade.  Aqua did the same, and Sora noticed hers was radically different from his; it was more detailed, with a clearer cutting edge.

 

“Do they come with cool powers?”

 

“Mhm.  Magic, and other things.”  The stern look came back in full force.  “It also comes with a lot of responsibility.  The only thing that can destroy a Heartless for good is a keyblade, which means we’re going to have a lot of work to do.”  The word ‘responsibility’ dampened Sora’s excitement at the prospect of learning  _magic_ , but he still had plenty left to get up and cheer.

 

“Alright, but first we need to get going.”  Aqua stood up as well, and responded to Sora’s question before he opened his mouth.  “We need to find a place with people to talk to.  Staying here… isn’t safe.  The darkness is close here.  And I don’t know about you, but  _I’m_  hungry.”  She picked up one of the piles of clothes, the ones with high-heeled shoes, and walked off.  “So get changed, we have a lot of flying to do.”

 

It took a moment to parse what she had said, before Sora shouted out: “Flying?!”

 

\---

 

Master Eraqus’ keyblade glider was similar in design to Terra’s, Aqua noted with a bit of saddened familiarity.  A bike-styled glider with far less ornamentation designed to look similar to a horse.  Honestly, she doubted any form of glider would have endeared her to the Black Coat as it was technically called.

 

With her keyblade armor, the cape was entirely behind her so it didn’t disturb her any, but having the coat flapping about as she flew was annoying at best and distracting at worst.  And using Master Eraqus’ glider brought up all kinds of bad memories.  She had spent, apparently, ten years in the realm of darkness pinning for the light so everything could go back to normal.  And now that she was back in the realm of light, things were somehow worse than when she was in the realm of darkness.

 

She remembered a story Master Eraqus had told her and Terra as children.  Of a village that was attacked by monsters.  The ones that came out at night were terrible, but people understood that the monsters would be there because of the dark.  The ones that attacked in broad daylight were far more frightening, because people expected the light to protect them.

 

He had meant it perhaps, to drive his point of the darkness being evil, but Aqua applied it here more literally.  The realm of light being just as bad as the realm of darkness hurt.

 

But she was back, and she could fix things.

 

Sora shifting in the sidecar, looking about as much as he could under his Black Coat’s hood drew her attention.  She remembered the bright and happy boy who she’d met on a tiny island world, with his best friend Riku.  She’d told him to try and keep Riku safe from the darkness, all those years ago, that it was his  _job_.  And apparently it had backfired in the worst way.

 

With Mickey missing, and no other keyblade wielders she could remember, it had to be her to train him.  But she probably would have offered anyway, just for the chance to make it up to Sora for using his world as a tool for her escape, and for causing the drama in his friendship she’d been hoping to avoid. And for exposing him to the darkness without adequate protection in desperation.

 

Even while she hoped that his friends were safe, she dreaded finding them.  Because they also knew that Sora’s eyes had been blue, and would question why they had suddenly become yellow.

 

\---

 

 


	4. Home away from Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aqua and Sora arrive at Traverse Town.

\----Chapter 4: Home away from Home.

 

The first world they found was one of the Worlds Between Aqua had read about.  They were worlds that existed in the space between the realms of darkness and light.  In a way, she guessed, they existed in the same space the Lanes Between did, which explained why they didn’t need to exit the Lanes to reach it.

 

Aqua and Sora touched down outside the gates to a walled city made of stone, from the air she had seen it internally partitioned into many districts.  Once they set down, she only needed some magic to swap out of the Black Coat outfit into her normal one.  As the glider reformed into her keyblade, Aqua posed to Sora a question.  “Sora, ready for your first magic lesson?”

 

The teenager pulled down his hood, again waking old instincts in Aqua.  “Uh, sure.  Is it going to be how to shoot fire, or turn people green?”  Sora had a  _striking_  similarity to Ven, to the point where she almost thought they were relatives.  And with yellow eyes, she kept vividly remembering the brief time when Ven was possessed by Master Xehanort’s pet demon, Vanitas.

 

“Turning people green isn’t actually as fun as it sounds, you know.  By the time you learn how to do it, there’s so many  _better_  pranks to pull.”  Aqua forced a tone of cheer, trying to remember her first lessons with Ven, and the face Terra had made when Ven took to magic far better than he had.  “The first thing is, magic isn’t as hard to learn as everyone thinks it is.  Well, if you want to fight with spells it is, but simple proficiency is easy.”

 

“Really?”  Holding his old clothes to his chest since the sidecar was gone, Sora sighed in relief as they approached the gate.

 

“Mhm.  Most of the time, it’s simply letting one person skilled with magic show you how it’s done.”  Resting one hand on the door, she used the other to tap her index and middle fingers to Sora’s forehead.  His initial surprise faded as a faint ring of white light emanated from Aqua’s fingers.  “There, I’ve just shared a spell I know with you.  Try casting it.”

 

Sora screwed his face up in concentration before the clothes he was holding and wearing shone with white light.  When it faded, he was in his original outfit.  “Whoa.”  He adjusted his jacket and finger-less gloves, and grinned from ear to ear.  “That was so  _cool!_ ”

 

“And just cast it again if you need to use the Black Coat for whatever reason.  Simple, huh?”  Aqua pushed on the gate, which sung open with a deep groan.  On the other side was a courtyard surrounded with buildings and stairs of red bricks.  People either alone or in small groups walked around at an almost sluggish pace, most of them with their eyes down.  From far away, Aqua could hear multiple people crying or calling out names.

 

“Whoa.  Another world,” Sora sighed, apparently not noticing the distant looks in people’s faces like Aqua was.  “So many people!  I haven’t seen this many before.”  After they passed through, the gate closed itself on its own, shutting with a muffled boom.  A tan woman in a green dress with enormous gold hoop earrings, an excessive amount of bracelets, frazzled brown hair and a clipboard rapidly approached them.

 

“Hello, I know this is a terrible situation for you, but I’m with the Traverse Town organizational committee,” she said in a quick, forced cheery voice.  “I can answer as many questions as you would like, and see about finding a place for the two of you to stay, but I need to ask some questions about you first.”

 

“Go right ahead,” Aqua answered, nodding.  She could see the bags under the woman’s eyes, and how she was swaying a bit just standing, and deduced that the woman hadn’t slept in a considerable time.  “That okay with you, Sora?”

 

“Sure, if it’ll help me find my friends,” he said, chipper despite the scene.

 

“We have a service that helps lost friends and family find each other,” the woman added while writing on the clipboard.  “Part of entering the program is taking a photo ID so if your friends show up after you they can find you too.”  The boy jumped, throwing his fist into the air in excitement.

 

“If they’re here, we’re sure to find them, then!”

 

“Now, I know the young man’s name, and you are?”  The woman pointed her pen at Aqua, who gave her name for the paperwork.  “Family, friends, or travel companions?”

 

“She’s sort of my teacher?”  Sora shrugged when the woman arched a brow at him, before returning to her paperwork.

 

“You’re not the first to be sent here with an educator, you know.”  The woman said conversationally.  “Cid, the man you’ll be seeing about your photograph, came in with a whole gaggle of his students back in the first few waves.  Next question, do you have any useful skills?”

 

“I’m skilled with magic,” Aqua volunteered.  “And I can bake.  If that helps any.”

 

“Magic is good, especially if you don’t mind teaching a few people basic Cure and Esuna spells.  Always a need for healers.”  The bureaucrat tried to laugh it off, but it was visibly forced, and neither Sora or Aqua laughed.  “Next question, do you have any major medical conditions or allergies?”

 

“I can’t eat carrots,” Sora volunteered perhaps  _too_  quickly.  “They make me go all red and puffy.  Can’t eat ‘em, nope.”  The questions followed like that, asking if they had any special needs, how much work they were willing to do, and more.  The notion of them being travellers wasn’t all too foreign to the bureaucrat, surprisingly.

 

“We have a fair number of people like that,” she said wistfully.  “They either fly around trying to find people and bring them here, or to find the folks that they’ve lost.  What that means is we’ll ask that you let us know when you’re back so we can throw some work your way when you’re around, and we’ll find another family that’ll let you stay with them while you’re here.”

 

“That’s very generous of you, thanks.”  The clipboard woman waved Aqua off, before finishing some writing.

 

“Alright, just head up the steps to the accessory shop, see if you know anyone on the wall an’ get your photograph taken.  I’ll have a place where you can go as soon as possible.”  And as quickly as she showed up, she was gone.  Sora rushed ahead to the shop she had designated while Aqua placidly followed.

 

The master looked over the people who lingered around the courtyard again, noting how even the young children looked distant.  From the changes in fashion styles and accents from voices she was hearing, she guessed Traverse Town to be a sort of refugee city for those who had lost their worlds.  Inside the shop, she found Sora looking over a literal wall of photographs.  The shop was a simple one-room affair, with a fireplace and chimney in one corner, and the counter where a blond man with a cigarette, goatee, and strange broad belt behind it in the other.  The walls between those two fixed points were covered in photographs, from the floor to the ceiling.

 

Aqua wondered how the man, Cid presumably, managed to work all day with the faces looking out at him.  Cid nodded his head at Aqua as she approached the counter.  “G’mornin’,” he said in an accented voice.  “Here to get yer photo added to the wall?”  Aqua nodded.

 

Terra hadn’t been seen since she’d fallen into the realm of darkness, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t around.  If Traverse Town was a hub of refugees, it was likely he would visit someday, and see her photo to know she was free.  “I have a question, sir,” Aqua said with a respectful nod.  Cid groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose.

 

“Please don’t call me ‘sir’, makes me feel old.…”

 

“Alright.  How many people have found each other through this service?”  Cid frowned, stroking his chin while Sora continued to look through the photographs.

 

“Well… the last one was Suga Mama, she found her granddaughter this way.  Was a couple’a years ago.”  The thought filled Aqua’s stomach with something heavy.  “Usually it ain’t more’n two or three folk from a world who survive to get here.  Alotta the times, they don’t know each other from a hole in the ground.”  Cid ducked down behind the counter and came up with a strange device Aqua guessed was for the camera.  “Alright, ladies first.  Smilin’s optional, miss.”  Aqua did try to smile as Cid positioned the device and activated it with a flash.  From a slot in the base, a black photograph framed in white slid out, which Cid set on the counter.  “An’ while that develops, kid, come over here.”

 

Sora stopped his examination to scowl at Cid.  “I’m not a kid,” he grumbled while walking over to the counter.

 

“You’re a kid so long as I gotta crouch to take yer photo.”  Sora’s scowl deepened while Cid took his photograph too.  “Arright, that’s done with.  Now unless you wanna buy something, head outta here.  Sadira’s probably got ya a place to go, she’s good with that stuff.”  Sora gave a last quick look at the walls before he and Aqua left.

 

“I didn’t see anyone I knew,” Sora sadly informed Aqua as they started to walk aimlessly.

 

“That’s only the people who wanted to get their photos taken, Sora.”  Aqua tried to be gentle, as she knew she had a habit of coming off as haughty.  “Maybe they’re here, but somewhere else?  Or they haven’t shown up yet?”

 

“Yeah….”  Aqua didn’t much care for seeing Sora acting like the long-time residents already when they’d just arrived so called on her experience with Terra and Ven to try and get him out of his sad state.

 

“Alright, would a lesson cheer you up?”  It got Sora to look up at her at least, which was progress in Aqua’s book.  “Okay, first thing’s first.  Let me see your stance.”  Aqua called her keyblade and assumed her starting position for combat.  Feet close together, back straight, arms spread out slightly from her sides, keyblade hand facing away from her focus and pointed down.

 

Sora’s starting stance puzzled Aqua at first.  He crouched down, holding the keyblade with both hands, pointing it up and away from his body, but with the teeth pointed towards himself.  It took her a moment to realize he was struggling to hold the keyblade up, even with both hands.  She’d been wielding a keyblade for… multiple decades, she guessed, so she must have gotten used to the weight.  She walked forward and examined Sora’s stance, prodding his arms and legs to test the strength of it.  Surprisingly, he moved only a little.

 

“A strange stance you have here.  What sort of fights have you been in to make you go this way?”  Sora frowned and seemed to consider before answering.

 

“I guess… I block a lot as my opening move?  The others on the island, they tended to make the first move, and I’d respond.  Block their attack, and smack ‘em.”  He quickly brought the keyblade up to guard against an imaginary attack, and transitioned it into a thrust, only slightly stumbling.  Aqua’s eyebrows rose, and she smiled faintly.  Terra and Ven had been more… reckless in their fighting styles; even Master Eraqus employed only basic defensive techniques.  Perhaps she’d found someone she could share her barrier magic with.

 

“Focusing on defense and creating an opening are good skills to work on, and a good place to start.  But first, let’s work on getting you used to the weight of that keyblade.”  She walked away from Sora and took her keyblade in both hands.  “I’m going to show you some exercises to help build muscle where you need it, alright?”  Sora nodded enthusiastically, and the training program began.

 

For a while, it was like when she was helping Ven train, and when she and Terra were first starting under Master Eraqus.  The basic forms, in repetition, pausing to help Sora get his arms and legs in the right spots before continuing.  It was a welcome break, in Aqua’s opinion.

 

\---

 

Not too far away, the bureaucrat drew a rune upon the cobblestone  ground in sand she scooped out of a bag.  Her clipboard rested on the ground next to her, and her tired seeming utterly gone.  She used her pen to get some of the lines correctly before picking up her clipboard and letting the rune do its work.

 

The space between the lines of sand lit up, and a luminous orb of sickly green and black rose up.  “You have found something interesting, my dear?”  A woman’s haughty voice echoed from the orb, as it expanded and shrank with her words.

 

“Yes, mistress,” the bureaucrat said, bowing before the orb.  “The woman you told me to be on the lookout for has appeared.”  The orb expanded sharply, before a translucent figure of a green-skinned woman in long black robes, a horned hat, and a long staff topped with a green orb appeared.

 

“You are sure?  She has the keyblade?”  The mistress’ tone was sharp, and critical.

 

“Yes.  And she is accompanied by a boy who can also use the weapon.”  While the bureaucrat remained in her bow, the mistress looked into the green gem at the top of her staff, running her spidery free hand over it.

 

“A boy?”

 

“Yes, mistress.  He is young, and new to the weapon.  But from his eyes, he has been too close to the dark already.”  A wicked smile spread on the mistress’ face as she heard the information, her expression one of vicious glee though the bureaucrat didn’t see it.

 

“Marvellous.  Keep a watch on them, I will have further orders for you in time.”  The mistress’ tone had become utterly charming to the bureaucrat’s ears.  “Should this pay off, I will forgive your previous failures and restore you to my inner circle.”  Without raising her head, the bureaucrat dropped down into a full kowtow.

 

“Thank you mistress, I promise not to fail you!”

 

“Your promises mean nothing to me,” all trace of charm was gone from the mistress’ voice, replaced with a sharp chastisement.  “Your success here will absolve you of your  _utter_  failures before, and only then will your promises mean anything to me.  Now go!”  The mistress stamped her translucent staff upon the ground, vanishing from the alleyway.

 

Still keeping her head bowed, the bureaucrat scooped the sand used in the ritual back into its bag and hastily left the alleyway.  She never noticed the black bird that followed after her.

 

\----

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This Sora went with the Dream Shield, so you're informed.


	5. Pride Hurts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More Traverse Town residents are met, and Leon fucks up royal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it was in that moment that Leon knew.

 

 

\----Chapter 5: Pride Hurts

 

Sora kept up the exercises until his arms and back hurt, where Aqua shared with him a simple spell called ‘Esuna’ and the lesson became one of magic instead of bladework.  “Within you there is a reserve of energy which powers magic,” Aqua started, in a lecturing tone that reminded Sora of a school teacher.  “It builds up over time, and won’t rebuild until fully depleted, that’s why fighting with magic is so difficult for people.  Surviving the time without magic doesn’t have a lot of room for error.”

 

“Oh,” Sora said, thinking about the information.  “But I know how to fight, so I should be alright, right?”  Aqua shook her head, knocking the budding grin right off Sora’s face.

 

“You’re still learning, so surviving any length of time in a fight will be difficult for you.”  She summoned her fancy keyblade.  Sora only now noticed the faint light emanating from the weapon.  “Back to the topic at hand, the keyblade is a weapon of magic, so it allows you to sort of cheat the system.  It can provide a constant, but fixed, amount of magic once you know how to tap into it.  Cure magic takes a lot of power to cast, so we’ll try getting you connected to the keyblade by you casting Esuna to help with those aching muscles.”

 

Sora struggled to understand what had been said about magic.  “You mean… I can have unlimited magic with a keyblade?”  In truth, he was simply delaying having to call his own keyblade again.  The weight was going to hurt his stretched out arms.

 

“Well, theoretically there’s a keyblade that has truly unlimited magic.  But most keyblades have a fixed amount.”  She frowned when Sora’s expression didn’t change.  “Hmm, think of it… like a bucket that fills itself up with water.  It’ll keep producing water every time you empty it, but never more than one bucketfull.”

 

“Oh, I get it.”  With a sigh, he called his keyblade into his hand, and immediately regretted it.  He followed the instructions Aqua had implanted in his mind as part of the spell, and hoped for the best.  He was enveloped in a soft yellow light, and the aches in his arms and back faded away to merely being sore.  “It works!”

 

“Okay good, now you should feel something from the keyblade sensing you’ve depleted your magic.  Just reach out to it and-”  Aqua’s lesson was cut off by a shout from the area near the accessory shop.  There, the two of them saw the bureaucrat from earlier waving over to them, and coming down the stairs perhaps a bit too quickly.  This quickly proved true as she stumbled and fell down the remaining stairs, prompting both keyblade wielders to run to her side.

 

Sora helped her up while Aqua gathered the paperwork scattered about and quickly tapped her with a spell that produced a green glow and briefly-lived blooming flowers in her hair.  “There, that should have fixed you up,” Aqua said while the woman hastily expressed thanks and apologies at the same time.  “I understand you have a lot of work, but surely there’s time for you to rest?”

 

“Oh no no no,” the bureaucrat cheerfully responded, stumbling a bit even as she stood still.  “There’s still so much I have to today.  But thankfully,” she held her clipboard just under her chin and grinned with glee, “I’ve found a family that’s willing to share their housing with you!  Come on, this way.”  She immediately went back up the steps she had just fallen down, leaving the two keyblade wielders to look at each other in confusion before following.

 

“Should we even be staying with a family,” Sora asked while they walked.  “You said we had to look through a lot of worlds to find Riku and Kairi.”  Aqua nodded, though her eyes didn’t leave the bureaucrat leading them towards the wall at the edge of the district.

 

“Having a place you can rely on isn’t a bad thing, even for a traveller.”  Sora waited for her to elaborate further, but Aqua was silent.  He sighed, thinking about the potential for Riku and Kairi to be getting further away.

 

“The family you’ll be staying with are just absolute darlings,” the bureaucrat chimed from ahead while opening the gate between the districts.  They came out on an elevated walkway around a courtyard featuring a large fountain.  The upper parts of the walkway led to fancy shops with neon signs, a hotel that seemed to occupy most of one side, and a path toward an enormous building on the far side of the district.  “Now, the town is mostly safe.  But occassionally, a few Heartless do pop in.  As long as you have magic or a magic weapon, then you should be alright, but if you’re not, try to run and shout for help.  One of the town protectors will be by to help you in a jiffy!”

 

“Thank you miss…  I don’t think we caught your name.”  The bureaucrat stopped at the top of a flight of stairs, almost falling again before hastily apologizing yet again.

 

“I’m Sadira,” she said once she’d calmed down, and offered her hand for the two of them to take turns shaking.  “Thank you for reminding me, it would have been  _awkward_  if you didn’t know who I was.”  Sora didn’t have time to comment, as the rest of the trip down the stairs was spent trying to keep Sadira from falling  _down_  them.

 

There were only a few people in the new section of the town, at least hanging around outside.  They weren’t in a good place to see them, walking toward the huge building from the ground level.  As they walked toward the structure, they saw an elderly black woman in a pink robe sitting on a rocking chair, overlooking the courtyard.

 

“Hey now,” the elder shouted down to them.  “What’s going on here?”

 

“Pardon us, Ma’am,” responded Aqua.  “Um, Miss Sadira appears to have gone too long without sleep and-”  The elder hopped out of her chair, and began to brandish a cane down at Sadira.

 

“Saddie, Suga Mama  _knows_  she told you to take better care of yourself.  Just a second, I’ll be right down, she can have a nap on my couch.”  Sadira began to object as the elder, Suga Mama, vanished from her balcony and soon emerged from a door on the ground level.  Sora noted with some amusement that she was actually shorter than he was.  “Alright, Saddie come on in.”

 

“Suga Mama, it’s fine, I’ve only been up…”  She stopped resisting Sora and Aqua guiding her into Suga Mama’s house for a few moments while she thought it up.  “Thirty-seven hours.”  Suga Mama bonked her on the head with her cane, and that spelled the end of Sadira fighting being laid on the pink, fluffy-cushioned couch.

 

“Thank ye for helping Saddie you two,” Suga Mama’s voice was sweet as honey as she threw a blanket from an armchair over Sadira.  “She’s good folk, she’ll look after you if you let her.”

 

“She certainly seems the type to shoulder more than her share of the work,” Aqua commented.  “I hope she gets the rest she needs that she doesn’t fall down any more stairs.”  The old woman’s squinted face turned into a frown as she looked over at Sadira.

 

“Saddie’s one of the few folks around here who never gives up on folks, makes her good for finding a place for everyone.  Helped me find my grandbaby a couple years ago.”  The old woman hobbled over to the knocked-out Sadira to put a cushion from the top of the couch under her head.  “She’s good people.”

 

“I hope she can help me find my friends,” Sora commented, earning Suga Mama’s cane waggled in his face.

 

“Don’t you worry none.  Iffin they come ‘round here, Saddie or Suga Mama will find ‘em for ya.  Now,” Suga Mama threw herself with surprising force for an old woman into an armchair.  “Where was Saddie taking y’all?”

 

“A family agreed to let us stay with them,” Aqua explained while Sora looked around the house.  It wasn’t very big, but still bigger than Sora’s house had been back on the islands.  Mostly pink, with a few isolated bits of decoration on the walls.  There were only a few photographs over the fireplace.  A group photo of Suga Mama, and presumably her family.  A younger woman with red-brown hair and a winning smile, two men both dangerously thin, one in suspender pants and the other in a dancer’s outfit, a white fluffy dog being hugged by a pair of babies, and a young girl about Sora’s age with pig-tails, a beauty mark, and a smile quite similar to the woman’s.  The same people were then in other, smaller photographs.  The man in the dancer outfit had a heart-framed picture, a picture of a far younger Suga Mama only identifiable by her similar hairdo and another woman, and the three children on their own.

 

“That’s Suga Mama’s family,” the elder said, suddenly next to Sora.  She reached out and touched the family photo with a sad expression.  “Ain’t seen most of ‘em, but Penny,” she pointed at the young girl with the beauty mark, “showed up in town about a month after Suga Mama did.  Herbie found her out in space and brought her here.”

 

“Who’s Herbie?”  Sora’s question almost surprised Suga Mama enough to open her eyes fully.

 

“He’s a traveller, goes around tryin’ to help folks he finds in space get to here, Suga Mama looks after him when he’s in town.”  She wandered over to the couch and looked at the clipboard Sadira had dropped when knocked out.  “And it looks like we’re going to be neighbors, you two are staying with Pongo and Perdita.”

 

“Are they nearby, ma’am?”  Suga Mama shook her cane at Aqua while heading outside.

 

“You call me Suga Mama, missy.  An’ yeah, they’re around the corner and at the end of the alley, next to the ominous locked door that growls at everyone who tries to open it.”  Sora thought she was joking, but as he and Aqua followed her, he saw there was a perfectly pleasant looking door next to one that continuously had mist seeping from beneath it.  “Pongo and Perdita are lovely folk, don’t usually bring much to the pot lucks, but they ain’t got hands so it’s understandable.”  Suga Mama walked back into her house, waving goodbye before closing her door with perhaps a bit too much force.

 

The keyblade wielders headed down to the door, whereupon Aqua knocked on it.  A dalmatian dog’s head with a red collar popped out of a doggie-door built into the base, looked at them and then pulled back.  The lever-style door handle twisted and opened up, letting them inside.  The living room was perfectly pleasant looking, Sora thought.  If a bit too big for how little furniture was in it.

 

The only people he saw was a pair of dalmatians, a male with all-black ears and red collar, and a female with white ears and a blue collar.  The two seemed quite excited to see them, walking around and sniffing at them.  “Oh, what beautiful dogs,” Aqua cooed, holding her hand down for more sniffing.  Sora was a bit distracted being pummeled by the male’s wagging tail to comment.

 

“Oh that is high praise coming from you, miss,” the female dog said in a accented voice, thoroughly surprising Sora.

 

“But I must insist that I’m more handsome than pretty,” the male said in turn, as they both sat down next to each other in front of their house guests.

 

“Oh, I’m guessing you two are Pongo and Perdita?”  Sora asked before Aqua who was utterly distracted by giving the dogs ear scratches.

 

“Quite right, oh thank you miss that one spot has been out of reach for quite a long time.  I’m Pongo, lovely to have you in our home.”  Talking animals, after all he had seen in the past day seemed… pretty normal, comparatively, Sora thought.

 

\---

 

Pongo and Perdita had lost their puppies when their world collapsed, Sora found out later.  They’d accepted having Aqua and Sora as their traveller guests in the hopes that the two of them could find the puppies in the various worlds.  All ninety-nine of them.  Aqua had rapidly agreed to the request, and went to the kitchen after Perdita showed her around.  But apparently, something was missing from her spice rack for what Aqua planed to cook, so she sent Sora out to the first district with a large white faceted gemstone to buy some sea salt.

 

Some of the monsters from the island came out and attacked him while he was heading back to the First District, but Sora was able to bash them into exploding much to the surprise of the few people still on the street at the time.  At first he’d thought it to be merely some stragglers, but then the second wave of them showed up.  And then the third.  And then the fourth.

 

The townspeople by then had learned their lesson and ran away, except for one man.  A peculiarly dressed man had been running for the gate to the First District when one of the monsters tripped him and several lept onto him.  The scream Sora heard as a heart-shaped red gem was torn out of the man’s chest stunned him long enough that he took a hit.  Sora ran to the man as the Heartless began to back off, but he was gone.  Nothing left of him.

 

Still processing the sight, Sora kept fighting through the Heartless until he made it to the First District.  Whereupon the first thing he heard was a woman’s shriek, followed by the sounds of a panicked mob.  The cause quickly revealed itself: More Heartless, chasing after people.  The most difficult part was getting to the Heartless monsters to smash them, and the Heartless there took three hits to smash apart, rather than the usual two.

 

The crowd dispersed quickly, hiding in buildings or homes while Sora smacked the Heartless into nonexistence one at a time.  Finally, panting from exertion, the Heartless were all gone, and Sora could take a break.  He cast Esuna again, which helped him regain his breath quicker and reduced the pain in his limbs from the long fight.

 

“They’ll come at you out of nowhere,” a stranger’s voice said which drew Sora’s attention.  By the door to the accessory shop, an older man in black leather, an excessive amount of belts, and a scar along his nose stood, frowning at Sora.

 

“Who are you?”  The man ignored Sora’s question, walking down the stairs to the courtyard where Sora had been fighting.

 

“And they’ll keep coming after you, so long as you continue to wield the keyblade.”  The stranger paused to pinch the bridge of his nose.  “But why?  Why would it chose a kid like you?”

 

Thoroughly insulted, Sora resumed his fighting stance.  “What’s that supposed to mean?”  Aqua had been supportive of him learning to use the keyblade, so he’d thought other grownups would as well.  What was so awful about him having the keyblade, after all?

 

“Nothing, now… let’s see that keyblade.”  The man gave Sora a piercing look, and started to advance with his hand extended.  Sora grit his teeth and brought the keyblade up to guard.

 

“There’s  _no way_  you’re getting this!”  The keyblade was his, and his way to find his friends. At that moment, Sora would have died before giving it up.  The stranger sighed, and in a flash of fire, a bizarre weapon appeared on in his hand.  A massive revolver that turned into a sword halfway through.

 

“Alright… then have it your way.”  The keyblade and the gun...blade clashed, and battle was joined.

 

The fight lasted all of a two minutes.  Sora was exhausted, even with Esuna helping out, and the man was significantly stronger than him.  Sora’s blocks were all batted aside like they didn’t matter.  And after one too many hits from the gunblade, Sora fell over on his back, panting for air.  The sound of approaching footsteps motivated Sora to try and get up again.  He was going to lose the keyblade if he couldn’t get up and fight.

 

A wave of heat and rapid moving air passed over him, along with a flare of light.  Sora looked up just in time to see the stranger flying through the air, trailing smoke, before hitting one of the lampposts lighting up the area.

 

“My name is Master Aqua,” Sora heard behind him, in a familiar voice that had become positively  _glacial_  in its coldness.  “And you had better have a good excuse for attacking my student.”  Aqua was there, and there was no way the stranger could beat her.  Feeling safe, Sora didn’t mind going unconscious again.

 

\----

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> He fucked up.


	6. Machinations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luxord plots, and Aqua lectures.

\----Chapter 6: Machinations.

 

Luxord didn’t like to wax poetic, but waiting for a war to conclude there wasn’t much else to do.  He stood atop a butte, looking down on the scene of keyblade wielders killing each other for ownership of a legendary weapon.  He’d seen it once or twice, but its wielder typically only lasted a few minutes before losing it to another.  There was powerful magic in the air from all the spells flying, and powerful weapons brandished by storied heroes.

 

And the entire conflict was utterly pointless.

 

“Here is the sublime moment of our undoing,” he said to the thin air.  “The moment when all fates before and after are utterly corrupt.”  Five legendary keyblade masters clashed with one another, identified by their animal masks.  Unicorn, Bear, Snake, Leopard, and Fox.  The Goat was not among them, but Luxord could feel his presence somewhere.

 

Watching.

 

The world had not yet been broken apart, separated by impassible gummi barriers, but such would not be the case for much longer.  One of the lesser keyblade wielders, seeing how he was going to lose the blade like so many others, was going to make a decision that spelled doom for countless people.  He was going to shatter the original keyblade, the χ-blade.

 

And the Goat, peer of the five legendary masters fighting in the valley below, would leave just in time to escape the blast that would kill so many.

 

The moment, the  _literal moment_  Luxord could no longer sense the gazing eye in the Goat’s weapon, he went into action.  Into a corridor of darkness he lept, emerging just below the world-shattering weapon as it floated from the force of its coming destruction.  Five legendary masters lay on the ground, dying.  He could not save them, nor did he think they deserved saving.  But perhaps the actions he was about to take would see them saved from their own folly.

 

“Master…?”  The Unicorn-masked keyblade wielder asked, only standing from leaning upon his weapon.  The man reached out to Luxord, who neither moved to help him or swat the hand away.

 

“No, I’m sorry.”  Despair enveloped the Unicorn masked man, and it stirred memories in Luxord.  Memories in turn which stirred a fledgling heart within him, producing a bitter emotion: Empathy.  “I’m here to collect you.”  The man did not have time to react as he, and the four other near-dead masked masters were surrounded by giant cards.  They parted to reveal nothing where the masters had been, but five new cards in Luxord’s hand.

 

The weapon was about to explode, there wasn’t the time to linger and dwell on how he felt about the fate of the ancient masters he had kidnapped.  Back into the corridor of darkness he went, into the realm where time was an illusion.  It didn’t matter  _when_  he exited out of the corridor, it would be precisely when he needed to back in the realm of light.

 

“You want to cheat, Xehanort?  I can cheat too.”  He examined the cards he’d acquired.  An Ace of Clubs, a King of Hearts, a Jack of Diamonds, a Joker, and a Queen of Spades.  He collapsed the hand into a stack of cards and began to work his magic upon them.  “A straight.  Solid hand, but I have to get the opportunity to play it.” 

 

He didn’t linger on how clever he thought he was, instead emerging at the other end of the corridor of darkness.  There was more gambling to be done.  And if he hoped to win, he needed to see more of the convoluted mess Xehanort had made of history.

 

\--

 

The World Within was a region of the realm of darkness in the ruins of what had once been a magic mirror.  And now it was Luxord’s hideout.  Each World Within was unique to the user, so even if he was discovered and chased down, he could have a hideaway.  A ruined pavilion built out of what used to be a secret lair within a castle, with cracked stonework, torn drapery embellished with stars, and toppled candelabras.  Five mirrors hung in five alcoves, with the walls between them collapsed and revealing a gem-filled void in which the entire structure floated.

 

Luxord had made a workshop out of the furthest alcove, where he gathered a small library of books, magical items, and other such bric a brac.  To this, he added the five cards of the ancient Foretellers, and pulled out a surprisingly thin tome from his shelf.

 

“These prophecies depict everything ever seen through the gazing eye,” Luxord muttered to himself.  “Has it changed in reference to what I’ve done?”  He had changed what the eye would see, and thus what would be recorded in the book of prophecies, so there should have been a marked change from when last he looked.  “Aha.”  He stabbed his finger into one of the pages.  Aqua was referenced far ahead of when she would have been in the unaltered version.  “Ah....”  But the change was miniscule.  “Even with these minor alterations, Xehanort’s plots move around them, like pebbles in a stream.”

 

He looked over the prophecies, and again, and again.  Until he came to a line of words spoken by a Xehanort far in the future.  ‘A heart immune to darkness is useless to us.’  “A heart… immune to darkness.”  The heart referenced by that Xehanort would not come into existence for years after Aqua’s insertion.  And it’s very happening was at risk, for as he watched, the letters forming the sentence began to fade in and out of the page.  If there were more powerful persons with hearts immune to darkness…  “But the only ones that are immune are the Princesses of Heart, pure light…  _aha_.”

 

Suddenly, inspiration struck Luxord.  Grinning at his own cleverness, he set down the book of prophecies, and picked up a glass vessel, sealed with a cork, and containing a bizarre orb that appeared to be utterly black.  “Pure light is immune to corruption by darkness… but so too, is pure darkness.”

 

A plan was forming in his head, Luxord could practically feel connections being made in chains of events already, perhaps through his command of time magic he was letting his past self know of his future self’s actions.  But no, that would be cheating on par with Xehanort.  “A Somebody needs a heart, a will, a vessel, and memory.  And I know just whom to talk to about all of those.”

 

\---

 

Aqua knew better than to let anger dictate her actions.  She had seen what it did with her friends, and vividly remembered when being provoked into great anger had done nothing but lead her into pointless fights.  However, teaching a punk who thought he could  _steal_  a keyblade seemed far from pointless when she happened upon it.

 

When she had come to investigate why a simple grocery run had taken Sora so long, she wasn’t sure of what to do.  For a moment, she’d thought Sora had an opportunity to win, before reality corrected her.  It was all pointless, all the man would do was open his heart to the call of a keyblade if he had the traits appealing to one.  But Sora didn’t know that, and she doubted the man with the ridiculous weapon knew either.

 

She burned through her indecision by launching a mighty Firaga spell at the man’s back when Sora finally collapsed.  “My name is Master Aqua,” she said, cold from the pointless situation she had allowed to worsen.  “And you had better have a good reason for attacking my student.”

 

The man had been launched through the air, trails of smoke following from his hair and a few ignited portions of his clothes, and struck a lamppost.  Aqua walked down the stairs to the courtyard where the fighting had happened, making sure her armored boots struck every stone she could so the man would hear her getting closer.  She only stopped when she was between Sora and the stranger.

 

“My name… is Leon,” the man introduced himself.  “And… I needed to get the keyblade away from him.  So… the Heartless wouldn’t track him.”  Aqua blinked at him, as he tried to stand up, using his weapon to help.  She blinked a second, and third time, trying to comprehend what Leon had just said.  Had… people forgotten the fundamental aspects of the keyblade?

 

“That wouldn’t have worked,” she told him, icily.  “The keyblade is a part of his heart now.  Any attempt at distraction you would have done would have just been the Heartless manipulating your expectations.”  Aqua spoke from bitter experience, quietly glad that the marks on her face the event had earned her hadn’t scarred.  Leon panted, coughed from the lingering smoke in his lungs, and looked at her with a confused expression.  “And even if your plan had worked… you wanted to enact this plan of yours by beating Sora up, rather than explaining anything.”

 

She waited for him to defend himself, but he just looked down at his boots.  Aqua heard girlish giggling from somewhere behind her, a glance earned her a glint of light on the roof of the accessory shop.  So he hadn’t been alone.  “I… don’t know what to say.”

 

“From your combat experience, I’d guess you’re one of the town protectors?”  The man had the build of someone who saw combat every day, with his arms and neck covered in tiny scars she knew would be remnants from fighting the Heartless.  “So I’m guessing you’re used to people doing what you say, when you say it, out of interest of the town’s safety.”  Leon didn’t look up at her, and didn’t say anything in his defense.  “Well.  That isn’t going to be the case anymore.”  She dismissed the Master’s Defender, and bent down to sling Sora onto her back piggyback style.  Aqua had intended to just leave the man with his busted pride, but after clearing the stairs she found her path blocked by a strange girl.  Young, but older than Sora, in an outfit that was somehow less fit for combat than Aqua’s, with black hair, brown eyes and a permanent smile.

 

“Hi, I’m the great ninja, Yuffie,” she introduced herself with a curtsey via an imaginary dress.  “Unlike my dumb friend down there, I’m going to be a reasonable person and tell you we have some information about the Heartless we’d like to share if you’re willing to listen.”

 

Aqua eyed the youngster before turning to where Leon was still staring at his boots down in the courtyard.  “Was that  _so difficult?_ ”

 

\----

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter than I would like, but real life needs must be met first.


	7. King's men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introducing Donald, Goofy, and Mickey's mountain of mistakes!

\----Chapter 7: King's men.

 

Aqua was escorted by the town protectors, Yuffie and Leon back into the Second District, and to the hotel built all along one story.  For a small establishment with only several individual rooms, it was quite pleasant.  The entire first hallway which allowed entrance to all the rooms was well decorated, and the facade of the building was lined with windows to let in the light of the town.

 

They were guided to a green door, and beyond that a green room.  The room was simple, a table near the entrance, a double bed occupying the far corner, a dresser that ran along the wall toward a back door, and a clock over the doorway to the next room over.  Aqua set Sora on the bed and quickly cast a Cure spell on him to make sure he’d wake up with more energy.

 

Leon took up a spot leaning on the door to the next room, while Yuffie sat upon the dresser.  Once Sora was taken care of, Aqua put on her serious face and sat down at the table.  “You wanted to talk about the Heartless, let’s talk,” she told Yuffie.  Turning her back to Leon was intended to be an insult, that she considered him nonthreatening.  Perhaps she did, considering her barrier could spring up in all directions.

 

Yuffie hopped off the dresser to stand with her hands on her hips.  “Alright,” she started, enthusiastic.  “Here’s what we know about the Heartless so far.”

 

\---

 

Donald Duck and Goofy Goof were not having a fun time trying to find their King.  First they had to hastily train replacements for them to defend Disney Castle while they were away, and neither had been happy with the most likely candidates to fill the roles.  Goofy’s son Max was still a teenager, but his skill as a knight outshone the other recruits, and Donald’s replacement was a black sheep of the castle’s residents - Pete Junior.  In some ways, PJ was a better magician than Donald himself, specifically in enchanting items and working with technology, but Donald would never acknowledge that while he was still alive.

 

But the King had left on a journey, and given the two of them a quest: To leave the castle, and find a warrior with the key to their salvation.  And to apologize to the Queen on his behalf but that was a separate matter.

 

Disney Castle, tall and curved, built of white stone and blue rooftops, was the one place in all the worlds that couldn’t possibly fall to darkness.  But the castle was still attacked by the strongest dark monsters, able to survive the all-consuming light at great cost.  It had been a legendary battle to carve a way through the dark minions surrounding the castle and fly free to other worlds on the King’s starship.

 

Called the Gummi Ship, it was constructed out of multicolored blocks of a semi-solid material that fused together upon contact.  It provided natural abilities to protect against the darkness existing between worlds, and also the Heartless attacks.  The battle to break free had cost them most of the ship - only Donald’s magic kept them going in all honesty.

 

But they were Donald, the King’s Magician, and Goofy, Captain of the Guard, and they refused to fail.

 

Donald, true to his surname an anthropomorphic duck dressed in a blue jacket and strange hat covered in zippers, was not limitless in his strength so there were long stretches of time when he simply couldn’t power the ship for them to proceed.  Goofy, an anthropomorphic long-eared dog in a more human-like outfit due to his proportions, would then have to keep a watch out for any Heartless ships.

 

“Say,” he asked, scratching under his tall hat during one such time.  “How d’ya think the King managed to get outta the Castle without gettin’ torn up too?”

 

Donald, panting from exertion in the pilot’s seat screwed up his face in a rage and tried to shake his fist in the air.  “He cheated!”  Donald was almost incomprehensible, his accent combined with his rage.  “With that star-shard!”

 

Goofy stopped to consider before sighing.  “Woulda been nice iffin he coulda taken us with him.”  Donald grumbled something he couldn’t hear, so Goofy looked over his shoulder with an arched brow at the duck.  “What d’ya say, Donald?”

 

“I  _said_ ,” the Duck growled in a barely understood tone, “that he’s been like this since that thing with those other palookas ten years ago.”  The magician crossed his arms over his chest and looked away, his huge eyes letting Goofy see that Donald was somewhere between rage and sadness.  “Goin’ off and doin’ things on his own… not telling us things until he doesn’t have a choice.  Not trustin’  _anyone_ ….”  Goofy’s entire body drooped, for he knew Donald was right.

 

“I miss the old days.  When the three of us could have adventures together.”  The two old friends sat quietly for a long time, lamenting how far the gap between them and their third friend had grown.  In time, Donald was able to start powering the Gummi Ship again, and their adventure continued.

 

\--

 

In the end, they didn’t end up reaching Traverse Town on their own.  During one of Donald’s breaks, Goofy spotted an approaching white object that he’d originally thought was a heartless.  It turned out to be a little car, flying through space on its own - mostly white with red, white, and blue racing stripes and the number ‘53’ on the front and sides.  They’d communicated where they were headed via morse code lights, and the car had offered to tow them to Traverse Town.

 

But when they arrived at the landing area for Traverse Town, and gotten out to thank their new friend, they found the car was empty.  “Did they already go inside?”  Donald asked, while looking around.  Seeing no one there, the magician hastily waddled over to the gates, trying to push them open.

 

“Well, maybe they’re invisible,” Goofy offered.  As he watched, he saw the steering wheel turn itself and the car start to drive toward the gate on its own.  Goofy hopped back just in time to avoid getting his enormous shoes run over.  “See, it’s driving itself!”

 

“Goofy stop rambling and help me open this-” Donald turned to see the little car rolling directly for him, pressing himself up against the door to avoid being squished.  But the car gently stopped well before hitting him, and beeped loudly from its horn.  The gates clicked and swung open on their own, letting the little car roll on through.  Once it was passed, the gates swung closed again, with Donald still holding on, his face still a mask of fright.

 

“A-hyuck, I bet that car was magical,” Goofy said, loping over to his travel companion.  “It was driving itself, alright.”  Donald didn’t respond, so Goofy waved his hand in front of the magician’s eyes.  “Uh, Donald?  You okay?”

 

Like he had been glued to the door, Donald slowly began to peel away, before falling to the ground.  Goofy reached down to try and help him up, but Donald hopped to his feet on his own.  “The key!”  Donald went to trying to open the gates again.  “I saw the key!”

 

“The key we was supposed to go lookin’ for?”

 

Donald nodded emphatically.

 

“That the king said was the thing that could help us save the worlds?”

 

Donald stopped trying to open the gates, looked back at Goofy and nodded emphatically again.

 

“Well let’s get in there, then!”

 

Goofy helped Donald to push open the gate, coming out to a courtyard. Immediately, Donald went running off past a small crowd of people, only to arrive at an empty corner.

 

“Uh,” Goofy muttered upon catching up, “weren’t they supposed to be here?”

 

Donald exploded into comments Goofy was glad no one but folks who’d known him for years could understand.  A hand tapped Goofy on the shoulder, getting his attention.  A young woman in a pink dress, with long brown hair bound with a pink bow, and a clipboard in her hands stood there.  “Hello,” she introduced herself.  “I’m Aerith.  The King told us to expect you.”

 

\---

 

“... and that’s all we know about the Heartless,” Yuffie concluded.  Aqua had her hand in a thinking pose with her chin, considering what had been told.

 

“The Heartless with the strange emblem don’t sound to be natural,” she said, briefly glancing over to Sora, noting he was still out like a light.  “I didn’t encounter any in the realm of darkness.”

 

“They only started to appear when our world was falling,” Leon said, a faint bit of bitterness in his voice.  “We didn’t get a chance to notice if someone was making them.”  He looked up from his brooding pose to hawkishly look at Aqua.  “You’re not surprised by any of this.  Was there something going on in the realm of darkness that let you know about all of this?”

 

“I ran into some worlds that had fallen to darkness.  So I had guessed it was happening, but….”  She paused, and spoke quietly when she resumed.  “I didn’t know it was this bad.  That  _so many_  worlds had fallen to darkness.”  Seeing Sora’s keyblade on the bed next to him, she suddenly remembered.  “Do you know a Mickey Mouse?  Small person, perfectly round ears, keyblade?”

 

“Sure do!”  Yuffie stood from the table, and made a dramatic gesture.  “The King’s been by often, helping us by teaching magic, and how to fight.”  It relieved Aqua to hear, as she had begun to question Mickey’s lack of action about the falling worlds. The title of  _King_  was new, however.

 

“Good, I’m hoping between me and him, we can train a bunch of keyblade warriors to help fight the Heartless.  Sora’s already one of Mick- the King’s students.  I’ve been looking after him since we met.”  Leon and Yuffie exchanged a concerned look, and several non-verbal communicative looks before Yuffie sighed, having lost the non-argument.

 

“Um.  What do you mean ‘student’?  And what do you mean training keyblade warriors?”  It was Aqua’s turn to be confused.  She stood up, and went to the bed while she talked.

 

“Student, as in, master and apprentice.  That’s how all keyblade wielders trained.  And training keyblade warriors should be self-explanatory.  The keyblade is the only weapon that can destroy a Heartless for good.”  She picked up Sora’s keyblade, the weapon feeding its name to her heart as she picked it up.  Kingdom Key, rather fitting Aqua thought.  “And look at this,” she showed them the keychain on the keyblade.  “You can’t miss the connection to the King, right?”

 

Yuffie and Leon got closer to examine it, Yuffie getting confused, while Leon’s hawkish look deepened.  “That’s definitely the King’s symbol.  But….”

 

Leon took up the conversation from Yuffie trailing off.  “The King told us the keyblade has to choose its wielder.  That you couldn’t just get your own on demand.”  Aqua’s confusion worsened with this new information, her mind worked trying to resolve Mickey, her friend, and someone who refused to create new keyblade wielders in the face of the worlds falling to darkness.

 

“That… well, technically.”  Aqua took a breath, articulating her thoughts.  “Technically all the King could have done was opened your heart for a keyblade to find you.  A keyblade can come to you without it, but that’s much rarer.”

 

“Why would the king be able to do that?”  Leon crossed his arms and started walking back toward the room.  “He doesn’t have a keyblade.”  Aqua dropped the Kingdom Key, unfortunately landing upon Yuffie’s foot, but was too stunned to notice.  A dawning sense of dread was filling her heart and she had to stop it.  She sat down on the bed, her expression distraught as she tried to process the information.

 

“What.”

 

As if it were perfectly timed, Sora chose that moment to awaken.  After a stretch and a yawn, he sat up in the bed, and began to look over the scene with confusion.  “Did something happen?”

 

“King Mickey has some explaining to do,” Leon concluded, ignoring Sora.  Aqua half hoped Sora would take offense to someone taking that tone with his Master, but his response threw her comprehension of the situation even further out the window.

 

“Who’s King Mickey?”

 

\----

 

Mickeeeeeeey, you got some splainin' to do!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mickeeeeeeey, you got some splainin' to do!


	8. The power of friendship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So much Heartless Genocide. And we're just getting started!

\----Chapter 8: The power of friendship.

 

Sora didn’t have any misgivings against Leon, upon waking up from his nap.  Aqua had taken care of him, Sora could tell from the considerable burn marks on Leon’s clothes.  And with a full nap to recover his energy, Sora was sure he could beat Leon in a rematch.  It would be difficult, but Leon focused too much on looking cool, sorta like how Riku fought.

 

But since he was awake, he had to sit through a lecture on the monsters that had attacked his island: Heartless.  Most of the stuff he already knew about them, but he listened all the same.  The interesting bits were tips about how to fight various types of Heartless, which he made sure to remember.  But something confused him, so during a lull in the conversation, he spoke out.

 

“What happens to the rest of the person?”

 

Yuffie and Leon exchanged looks before the ‘Great Ninja’ shrugged and answered:  “I don’t know, actually.  The rest of the person vanishes.” Aqua, who had been sitting on the end of the bed with her face buried in her hands suddenly spoke up.

 

“They become Nobodies,” she declared with strength that her previous collapse didn’t indicate.  The older woman stood, turning to face them with a stony expression.  “Bodies without hearts, animated by their memories and wills.  Those who belonged to particularly strong-hearted people retain their human appearance, while the others mutate severely.”  Sora tried to imagine what that would look like, and ultimately came to the conclusion that these ‘Nobodies’ probably resembled zombies.  “Sora, do you remember that man I was talking to at the tower ruins?”

 

Having had  _a lot_  happen in the past few hours, Sora actually had to sort through his memories a bit, crossing his arms while he thought on it before finally asking another question.  “The one who gave us the black coats?”

 

“The same.”  Aqua waved her hand, and a translucent image of the man in and his strangely cut trench coat appeared next to her.  “He was a Nobody, one of the human-form ones.  They’ve formed a group to guide the weaker Nobodies and organize evacuations of worlds the Heartless devour.”  Sora noted the profoundly sad look she gave the magical image, while holding a strange metal star with bits of blue glass in her hand.  “They’re called the Organization, as far as I know. This one is… was a friend I made on my journey after becoming a Keyblade Master, Prince Philip of the world Enchanted Dominion.”

 

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Leon said, with a pained expression.  Sora couldn’t tell if he was sharing in Aqua’s pain from having lost her friend that way, or from his burns.  “I know someone else like that, just didn’t know they were called Nobodies.”

 

“Not surprising.  Their evacuations haven’t gone well in the past, so I don’t think any of the people they’ve helped will be here to have told you about this.”  Aqua dispelled the image of ‘Prince Philip’, far slower in the gesture than she had summoned him.

 

“With respect, Master Aqua, how do you know he wasn’t lying to you?”  Sora felt bad for Leon, after seeing the piercing glare Aqua levied at him.  The older man struggled, but didn’t buckle under the force of it.  “If they don’t have hearts, how do you know he’s the same person as you remember?”

 

“Because I… Sora and I, have something they need.”  She called forth her keyblade to prove the point.  “The keyblade can free a heart captured by the darkness, which none of the Organization’s weapons have been able to do.  Once we find and destroy a Nobody’s Heartless, they can return to who they used to be.”  Aqua’s tone was ever so slightly bitter, Sora noticed.  “Trusting someone without a heart is foolish, I know that.  So I’m trusting the fact that Sora and I are the only keyblade wielders accounted for who can give them what they want.  As long as that remains true, then we’re irreplaceable to them.”

 

“Could that be why the King didn’t make more keyblade wielders?”  All eyes turned to Yuffie after she spoke up.  “He needed to be irreplaceable to the Organization too?”

 

None of them had time to think upon Yuffie’s proposal long, as a strange, gangly figure wearing a knight’s helmet and a strange symbol on its chest rather similar to Aqua’s appeared with a swirl of purple light.  Lron had described this type of Heartless, calling them Soldiers.  They had a trademark spinning attack that, when blocked, left them wide open.

 

Which ultimately didn’t come as Aqua decapitated the Heartless with one brutal swing, causing it to explode into darkness and release a pink heart shaped object that vanished moments later.  In the distance, shouts of panic began to come in through the walls and windows, followed shortly after by a siren.

 

“The town’s under attack!”  The grown-ups and Yuffie seemed to know automatically what to do, so Sora followed their example.  Leon went out the back, while Yuffie rushed out through the door connecting the green room to the next room over, and Aqua went out the front with Sora following after, trying to look grim and serious like her.  “Sora, Heartless obey whomever is strongest,” Aqua informed him while cutting her way through two other Soldier Heartless.  “That means there’s a leader somewhere, which we need to destroy.”

 

Movement outside caught Sora’s eye, almost distracting him enough for a Soldier to sneak up on him.  “Would it be a big Heartless?  Different from the rest?”  Talking while fighting was something he’d done a lot of on the island, but with a real weapon whose weight he was still not used to, and monsters that were fighting for keeps, he had to be careful about talking while fighting.

 

Aqua didn’t seem to have that problem, destroying each Heartless that came at her with disdainful slashes or weak magic attacks.  “Yes, that would probably be what we’re looking for…. It’s right outside isn’t it?”

 

“Yep!”  Soon the hallway was devoid of Soldier Heartless and the two keyblade wielders could look outside briefly to get a better look at the alleged leader of the attack.  In the sky over the town flew a mechanical-dragon like Heartless made of red and pink metal, with a bladed tail, disproportionately small wings, and a cage filled with Heartless beneath it.  “How are we going to get it down from there?”

 

“‘We’ aren’t.”  Sora looked at Aqua, outraged before she followed up.  “I can get up that high, so I’ll go up and destroy its wings.  You’ll have to stay on the ground until it falls, then it shouldn’t be able to fight back.”  Aqua smiled as she watched Sora’s outrage fade away.  “If I told you not to fight, would it do any good?”

 

“Nope!”  The younger keyblade wielder gave her a huge grin, which actually got a small laugh out of Aqua.

 

“Yeah, I figured as much.”  Her smile and laugh vanished abruptly as the siren started to play again.  “Let’s go.  Stick close to me.”  Sora nodded, and the two of them quickly exited the hotel to begin carving their way through the Heartless.

 

\--

 

Most of the Heartless attacking the city were of the Soldier variety, with a few flying supports.  The Air Soldiers, as Sora took to calling them were similar to the Soldier Heartless except they traded the helmet for an aviator hat and wings.  It was downright  _annoying_  to have to leap up and hit them, until he noticed Aqua doing a neat trick with her keyblade.  She’d throw the weapon, and send it spinning, then either let it return, or summon it to her hand.

 

Sora couldn’t quite get the boomerang effect down, but throwing the keyblade and summoning it back to his hand for another throw was far easier than jumping up to swing at the flying enemies.

 

The fighting led them through an alley on the opposite side of Suga Mama’s house from Pongo and Perdita’s place, toward the Third District they hadn’t visited before.  It was a small plaza, around which were ramps which led to enclosed raised levels.  An abandoned house was immediately to the left of the entry, with neon lights from a fountain and star-shaped door filling the main space.

 

“Alright Sora,” Aqua told him as they watched the dragon-like Heartless begin to fly in the direction of the district.  “I’m going to go up and get that thing down here.  You keep fighting the Heartless down here until I’m back.”  Sora gave her a thumbs up, then watched her jump easily to the rooftops of the buildings and leap toward the monster.

 

“I  _can’t wait_  until she teaches me how to do stuff like that,” Sora muttered to himself with glee.  He could just see himself being that cool, jumping around, destroying Heartless effortlessly and maybe one day being to introduce himself as ‘Master Sora’.  Riku and the others were going to be  _so jealous_  when they found out.  Sora saw a Soldier Heartless on its own in the plaza below, and remembered Aqua’s orders, rushing down the ramp to get at the Heartless.

 

However, as he got into his combat pose, ready to fight, an explosion overhead drew his attention.  Sora looked up just in time to see two colorful figures sailing through the air towards him, and tried to get out of the way.  It didn’t work, however, and Sora wound up trapped underneath the two strangers, who were too stunned to recognize the danger they were in.

 

After a minute, they both recovered enough to recognize his weapon, calling it “The key!”  And let him stand up.  The one Soldier that had passively watched the scene play out suddenly exploded into a cloud of darkness around a heart-shape.  As they watched, the heart grew enormously in size, becoming like a faceted gem, while the darkness circled around it and took a new, armored and enormous, shape.

 

\---

 

All in all, it wasn’t difficult to get the flying Heartless’ attention.  The cage it was carrying was full of Heartless bombs, apparently independent Heartless since they bore the emblem and had eyes of their own, which the main Heartless would drop upon the town in bombing runs.  All Aqua had to do to get the mechanical dragon Heartless’ attention was close the gap between them and then hit the bombs with a Firaga spell.

 

The explosion destroyed the cage and twisted the metal around where it had been, causing the mechanical Heartless to trail oily smoke.  Up close, Aqua could tell that it had no arms or legs, so calling it a dragon was perhaps inaccurate.  Still, it saw her and her keyblade, and gave chase.

 

She had expected it to be sluggish given its size relative to wingspan, but it was surprisingly fast.  During the initial attack she had to jump to dodge a bite attack, and then quickly block when the dragon brought its bladed tail around to hit her.  Her barrier counterattack only chipped the blade slightly.

 

While trying to guide the mechanical Heartless back toward the Third District where she could take out its wings and finish it with Sora, she noticed another giant Heartless already there.  An enormous suit of purple armor, with the arms and legs floating disconnected from the torso.  Sora and two vaguely familiar figures were already engaging the Heartless, however, so Aqua decided she’d have to finish the dragon on her own.

 

An opportunity presented itself when the beast’s jaws opened, revealing several tubes quickly heating up with some form of fire attack.  However, Aqua noticed enlarged gears on either side of the mouth, and sent her Master’s Defender spinning out to strike one, then come around and hit the other while flying back to her.  The strain from the jaw being directed in two opposing positions split it in half, half closed and half wide open.  It was easy to stay on the locked closed side of the beast’s mouth and avoid its fire breath altogether.

 

However her attempts to actually hit the Heartless didn’t go well, the keyblade only chipping its armor.  Thunder magic seemed to at least cause the machine to move against its wishes, Aqua was able to stop multiple tail attacks by hitting it with lightning and causing it to lock up.

 

Aqua found her vision going fuzzy, no matter how she blinked to try and clear it up.  It was only then she realized she hadn’t slept since returning to the realm of light.  “Not good,” she told herself while jumping to the next roof.  “Gotta finish this fast.”  Magic wasn’t really working, and she wasn’t strong enough to break through the dragon’s armor.  Somehow, her hand went to her Wayfinder, a treasured momento of her friends, enchanted with an unbreakable connection between the three of them.  Once, it had given her the strength to break a legendary weapon.  She hoped it would give her the strength she needed to fight on.

 

_Terra…_

 

The five-pointed star suddenly shone with amber light.  Aqua could feel the muscles in her arms, chest and legs swell as if she had focused her training on strength like Terra had.  Her movements became less graceful, but far more powerful, and when the Heartless tried to smack her with its crippled head her reprisal destroyed the fire-breath tubes in its mouth.

 

The Heartless appeared to recognize her sudden strength, backing off slightly.  But Aqua, with Terra’s borrowed power did not give it the chance to flee.  She lept from a rooftop with great speed and with one mighty swing, destroyed one of the tiny wings holding the Heartless aloft.  The Heartless’ armor, once so strong, broke under Aqua’s new strength; inner mechanisms were revealed only to be destroyed, and bit by bit the Heartless ceased to be.

 

One final blow, striking deep into the middle of the dragon spelled its doom.  The metal armor remaining fell away, revealing a small Heartless pilot, frozen from her attack.  An enormous faceted heart-shaped gem broke free from the pilot and floated off, leaving the Heartless to cease to exist.

 

Aqua’s newfound musculature faded away, leaving her to smile warmly down at the Wayfinder in her hand.  “You’re still here,” she said, voice breaking and tears welling up.  “You’re still alive.”  Aqua held the Wayfinder close, enjoying the feeling of her friend’s presence even as it faded.  “Thank you, Terra.  I’ll find you, but until then, you can have my strength too.  Whenever you need it.”

 

A great metallic crash drew her attention.  She looked over towards the Third District, and saw a second heart floating away, and suddenly remembered Sora.  Forgetting how tired she was for just a while longer, she rushed over to see if everything was alright.

 

Looking down from the rooftops, she saw Sora striking a victory pose alongside a strange duo - a dog-man and a duck with arms.  It took her a moment to realize who they were: Donald and Goofy, friends of Mickey’s.  She forgot how upset she was with Mickey for a moment, seeing his friends helping her student.  “Mickey… I’ll have questions for you, when I see you.  But thank you for sending help.”

 

\----

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How's my portrayal of D-Links?  Yes?  No?  Maybe?  Lobster?


	9. A Wish your Heart Makes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People reflect on folks they've lost, and talk of dreams happen.

\----Chapter 9: A Wish your Heart makes.

 

Luxord did not want to be where he was.  A stretch of the realm of darkness that bordered on the realm of nothingness - the void.  He didn’t want to play the rescuer for this particular person, but he would.

 

The very  _thought_  of helping him filled Luxord with rage.  But he reflected on the time when he couldn’t feel anything, and it helped him to remain smiling, suave, and personable during the rescue.  Even if he wanted nothing more than to choke the life out of ‘DiZ’ with his  _bare hands_.  He’d be polite, the perfect gentleman, so long as DiZ helped his friends and never got the opportunity to do the despicable thing that initially earned Luxord’s dislike.

 

Dislike seemed so weak a word for the feeling, but Luxord had to acknowledge it felt a match.  Hate was a cold feeling, and what Luxord felt for DiZ was  _hot_  and made his fledgling heart burn.

 

Upon return to the World Within, Luxord dropped his hood and swept his arms grandly to the scene.  “Welcome, my new friend, to our little hideaway, the World Within, Luxord special.”  DiZ was a tall man with long blue robes decorated with gold fractal patterns, a red cloak, a heavy tool belt, and bandages obscuring his face.  He looked around the scene, with a squint in his one exposed eye.

 

“This is a fragment of a world,” he surmised with his deep, powerful voice.  “There is a lot of magic here.”

 

“Indeed, and this version can only be accessed by myself, and now you.  I have parted the threshold, and allowed you access.”  The gambler bowed deeply, before standing and walking toward the workshop he’d set up.  “Here are the resources I have been able to gather to defeat our enemy.”

 

DiZ followed after Luxord, holding his hands behind his back so much like their true enemy.  But minor gestures couldn’t poison Luxord’s opinion of the man any more.  DiZ would serve his purpose, Luxord told himself, and that would be that.  “Why so little?”  Luxord stood aside for DiZ to examine the contents of the workshop; the Foreteller cards, the heart of darkness, the book of prophecies, and a shattered golden scepter among other items.  “Surely with your knowledge of history you could amass more resources.”

 

“Care must be taken, dear friend.  We have to avoid our enemy’s Eye at all costs, or the spell he has worked will shackle us as it has so many others.”  Unseen by DiZ, Luxord’s fist clenched to the point he could feel his joints pop from the force of it.  “But once the poison I have unleashed has spread, we will be able to grow our plot’s resources exponentially.”  Luxord took the book of prophecy, and opened it to a particular page and set the book down before DiZ.  “This is the reason I have involved you, and will involve others.”

 

Sniffing disdainfully, DiZ examined the book for a moment before recoiling in disgust.  “I know this story already-”  Luxord held up a hand to stop the tirade before it began.

 

“No, my friend, you don’t.  You have seen what our enemy wishes you to see.  Now read from the book, and see how you have been manipulated like we all have.”  DiZ glowered at him, for which Luxord was mildly pleased.  It warmed his heart to see DiZ unhappy.  But the bandaged man grunted and returned to reading while Luxord left the alcove for another one where he was in the process of amassing raw materials.  Looking over his shoulder, he made sure DiZ was distracted before reaching into his coat and pulling out a photograph.

 

Four people, all in Black Coats, sitting on top of a clock tower, eating ice cream.  Luxord was the one holding the camera, while farthest back was a scrawny man with a mane of spiky red hair, green eyes, and tear-mark tattoos on his cheeks.  In between them were two younger people, one a teenage boy with spiky blond hair that swept up to a point, and the other one was a teenage girl with her hood up.  The very sight of them hurt, but Luxord had to remind himself why he was doing all this.

 

“I won’t let it happen that way again,” Luxord told the people in the photograph, before putting it away.  He looked over his shoulder again, at DiZ sitting in the workshop alcove.  Rage spilled up again, but he forced it down and hid his feelings behind a poker face.  “I’m not going to let any of us be pawns.”

 

\---

 

Donald and Goofy joined Sora and Aqua in staying with Pongo and Perdita, since none of them could make use of the Gummi Ship in as bad a state as it was, and with only three seats.  Sadira had volunteered to find them someone who could give them a ride, which unfortunately would take time as she had to question all of the travelling residents.

 

After getting her first bit of sleep in ten years, Aqua went to work helping the town as much as she could.  There were plenty of injured people after the attack, so she gave Sora a Cure spell and taught him how to connect to the keyblade to no longer need his own magic reserve, and get to work healing.  Donald’s face when being told about how the keyblade supplied them with magic was utterly  _priceless_.

 

They also took the time to use a handy spell Donald had for locating lost objects to try and find any of their host’s lost puppies.  It took a bit of work to get everywhere necessary, but after a day’s effort, they found twelve puppies around the town itself.

 

Three of them happened to be in a peculiar section of the Third District.

 

The door had been sealed by fire magic, which Aqua took the time to teach to Sora for the purposes of opening the door.  Inside there was an outright cavern, half filled with water.  Far on an island was a dilapidated house, with a path of smooth, flat stones floating in the water between the island and the shore.  Aqua had no trouble jumping from stone to stone to cross, so she spent a fair bit of time waiting on the stairs up to the house while Sora, Donald, and Goofy tried to follow her example.  It didn’t help that there was some latent magic on the stones, causing them to move through the water in a fixed path.

 

Looking at the scene, she was overcome with memories of her and Terra first learning how to move with the weight of their keyblades under Master Eraqus.  The happy scene soon became sad as she remembered how she’d had to find out the Master had been struck down - second hand.  She called the Master’s Defender to her hand and examined the blocky keyblade.  “Is that why I keep using your weapon, Master?”  Aqua hoped her voice was quiet enough for the three boys splashing in the water and shouting in frustration wouldn’t hear.  “Because I couldn’t be there to watch you fall?”

 

Why would she want that?  It hurt enough to watch Terra and Ven fall, why did she think seeing the Master die would make her feel any better?  “I couldn’t save anyone, Master. They all ended up falling to the darkness.  You would be ashamed of me….”  Her mind was filled with the last images she had of Eraqus, desperate for her to bring Ven home.  Her Wayfinder warmed in her pocket, and shone with a faint light when she pulled it out.  A ghostly hand of a young [girl](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRdisTrKb6A) she didn’t know placed itself upon her trinket.  Aqua looked over to see a girl with familiar blood red hair and blue eyes smiling up at her.

 

“You saved me,” the apparition told her in a voice that had no substance.  It resonated in her heart.  “And you’ll save others.  Don’t let the past weigh you down from helping people right now.”  Aqua let the Master’s Defender fade away, reaching out to try and touch the ghostly girl.

 

“... Kairi?”

 

“Hey, Master Aqua!”  She snapped to look at Goofy, standing on the last stone with Sora, helping Donald up out of the water.  The dog-man waved, smiling energetically.  “Took us a while, but we’re here!”  When she looked to where the ghost had been, there was no one.  The Wayfinder was cold, as if it had never been warm, and emitted no light.  Aqua briefly wondered if some part of the realm of darkness had followed her, but dismissed the notion.

 

The ghost had tried to inspire Aqua, why would the darkness be so kind, she reasoned.

 

“Very good,” she told the trio, holding back her doubts to put on a proud smile.  “And it only took you, what?  Ten minutes?”

 

“Seven!”  Donald used his staff to strike Goofy in the knee, causing the dog-man to fall back into the water with a shout, grabbing onto Donald who in turn grabbed onto Sora until they were all back in the water.

 

“Whoops.  Guess you’ll have to go and try again.”  The three of them all complained but swam back to shore to try again.  While they did so, Aqua went around, looking for the three puppies supposed to be somewhere in the cavern.

 

She ended up finding them inside the house.  The house interior was one great circular room with a raised section in the center.  It was absolutely cluttered with books and furniture, and on the raised section there were two armchairs, a table, and a simple tea set.  As well as two elderly figures, a man and a woman, in robes of blue playing with three black and white spotted dogs.

 

“Merlin,” Aqua said, surprised, addressing the man with a conical hat and truly impressive beard.  “Fairy Godmother.”  The woman, in a hooded blue robe with red bow looked up to see Aqua entering through a tarp-covered hole in the wall.  “It’s so good to see you again!”  Aqua hadn’t dared hope that the Fairy who helped people’s dreams come true had survived through ten years of the Heartless, or such a kindly old Wizard either.  The two older magical people immediately rose from their armchairs and bustled over to chat with Aqua while passing her one of the puppies.

 

It was another ten minutes when the boys finally made their way to the island, and into the house to find three powerfully magic people talking like they were old friends.

 

\--

 

Merlin, as it happened, had been asked by Mickey to help train Sora in magic, and had previously been Donald’s magical teacher in much the same way Yen Sid had taught Mickey.  The Fairy Godmother had been asked to offer what assistance she could, though her magic wasn’t very useful on a battlefield.

 

Merlin took Sora, Donald, and Goofy into the attic where Sora could get to practicing some of his new spells, leaving the women to sit downstairs and talk while playing with the puppies.  “You know,” Aqua said, softly while letting herself relax into an armchair Merlin had summoned for her.  “I don’t think I’ve experienced enough to know how to fight the darkness, if not with light.  But I don’t know if I have any choice.”

 

The Fairy Godmother wagged her finger at Aqua, before letting a puppy try to snap at it.  “Dear, I know you’ve been in an incredibly bad spot for a long time, but I’d thought you’d figure it out by now.”

 

Aqua sighed, holding a puppy up to lick at her face.  “I’m sorry for disappointing.”

 

The Fairy Godmother gave Aqua a stricken look, as if Aqua had said something awful.  “Dear, you cannot disappoint me by failing.  It is only when you stop thinking you can do it that you’ll disappoint me.”  She set the puppies she’d been occupying aside to sit in Merlin’s abandoned chair.  “Now, if experience hasn’t taught you what you needed, I’ll try talking.  Though Merlin is far better at it.”

 

“That would be helpful, thank you.”

 

“You’re quite welcome.”  The Fairy Godmother placed her hands in her lap and gave Aqua an apprehensive look.  “You’ve been fighting the darkness, what do you think of it?”  Images of  _Xehanort_ , and Vanitas, surged to the front of Aqua’s mind.  How the realm of darkness had played with her, and how the Heartless mercilessly hunted people down for their hearts.

 

“Anger, hate, and hunger.”  The Fairy Godmother flinched at the venom in Aqua’s words, making her worry.  “Did I say something wrong?”

 

“No.  The darkness is most of those things.  The only one you didn’t get right is ‘hate’.”  Aqua’s expression became bewildered while the Fairy Godmother’s became apologetic.  “Darkness is the low emotions, the ones that drive our hearts to beat like a drum.  Hate is an emotion of the light, not the dark.”

 

At first, Aqua wanted to refute the notion of  _hate_  being of the light, but then she remembered her Master.  The fault that impacted his entire worldview, that had first driven Aqua to meet the Fairy Godmother to begin with, was how much he  _hated_  the dark.  And, on reflection, Aqua had to admit that hatred had caused the chain of events that led to her current predicament.  “I… don’t like that, but my heart tells me it’s true.”

 

The Fairy Godmother smiled faintly and continued her lecture.  “Now, you say you don’t feel you have a choice but to fight the darkness with light… in essence, you are correct.  Light holds your destiny, and destiny shackles you to only a few options.  Darkness holds the power of choice, for it was defying destiny that first begot darkness in the hearts of people.”

 

“So… if I shun the dark, I give up my power to choose?”  The Fairy Godmother nodded.

 

“And neither option is good or bad.  If you trust in your destiny to see you happy, you can allow it to move you to where you need to be.  And if you don’t, you can chose to make your own fate.  The key element to fighting the darkness isn’t to do so with light, but to do so with trust - trust in the light to guide your path.”

 

“Isn’t that the same as fighting it with light directly?”

 

“Not really, my dear.”  The Fairy Godmother looked pensive for a moment, as if she were articulating her thoughts.  “Trust is an aspect of the light, yes, but is distinct enough not to cast shadows on the hearts of others when it comes into contact with the darkness.  In much the same way dreams are an aspect of the darkness that don’t diminish light when the two touch.”

 

“Dreams are part of the darkness?”  Aqua set the puppy down in her lap while she pondered all the new information given to her.  After a moment, she levied an inquiring look at the Fairy Godmother.  “Does that make you, a Fairy of dreams, part of the darkness?”  Solemnly, the Fairy Godmother nodded.

 

“It is partly how I was able to escape the destruction of my world.  As a being born from darkness, the Heartless have trouble seeing me.”  The keyblade master’s thoughts swirled, putting all the new points of information into a line.

 

“I’m sorry, but… you don’t seem very dark from what I’ve seen.”

 

“True, it’s because I’m primarily rooted in dreams, not the dark itself.  Dreams can be bright, or dark, depending on what the dream is.  And my job is to help people realize that dreams can come true.”

 

“Even bad dreams?”  The Fairy Godmother gave Aqua a small smile and went a long time without blinking before she nodded.

 

“Sometimes, people need to believe in bad dreams too.”

 

\----

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fairy Godmother's a Dream Eater, y'all.


	10. Mistress & Master

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maleficent makes her debut, and the next world is announced.

\----Chapter 10: Mistress & Master

 

The court had been summoned.  All the commanders and great minds abandoned their conquests and games to attend the gathering in the empty castle: Hollow Bastion.

 

A castle sprouting from the ruins of a town, surrounded on all sides by waterfalls, the castle was the only worthwhile thing in the world now.  A grand, utterly enormous structure, half consumed by metal, half of ancient stonework.  It bore on its facade the emblem of the Heartless that now garrisoned it, a heart with a winged point at the bottom with an X of thorny lines cutting across it.

 

The air around the castle was filled with ships of all shapes and sizes, unloading the mighty commanders and favored courtiers to make their way to the impromptu throne room of the castle: the chapel.  One of the most untouched rooms in all the castle, it was made of blue stone, with stained glass windows all around the apse.  The icons of worship had long been removed, leaving only an empty altar around which the summoned gathered.

 

Traitors, schemers, monsters, and ambitious mortals filled the room.  In the fashions of many worlds, and just as many magics to allow them to comingle.  Some came from the same world, and thus vied for the Mistress’ approval over their fellows by means of positioning or accomplishments to regale her with once she arrived.

 

They muttered to each other, trying to determine among their varied and strained alliances whom had failed so severely as to merit a gathering.  It was not often that the Mistress made  _an example_  of someone.

 

Their gossipping came to an end as an orb of sickly green appeared in the midst of what had once been the altar.  Fire of green and yellow rose from nothing, and met the orb - and from the fire, the orb, and the smoke of the fire emerged a woman.

 

Maleficent, the Mistress of All Evil.

 

A woman of haunting beauty, and awful temper; dressed in voluminous robes of black and purple, wearing a horned hat, with only a single golden ring set with black stone, and a long staff with a sickly green orb at its point for decoration.  Her skin was the same pale green as the fire, and her eyes shone yellow, like a jaundiced babe, shadowed with violet, and her lips were red as the blood of a hanged man.

 

She lifted the staff she held, and struck it on the stone, producing a crack that shook the assembled villains down to their marrow-bones.  As if she had spoken, they bent down, though most grimaced from it.  For no matter how mighty the magician, no matter how clever the wicked genius, and no matter how divine the evil gods, Maleficent was their Mistress.  She held them fast by invisible strings, like puppets.

 

“Harken to me,” the Mistress said, granting permission for her minions to rise from their kneeling.  “A new player has entered the game.  And if left to her own machinations, she will see us ruined.”  Maleficent swept her arms upward, lifting her staff and causing her wide sleeves to sweep up like the wings of a beast.  The light from the rose windows dimmed, and a seal of magic appeared before her upon the floor.

 

The image of a woman, in strange garments, with short hair and a determined expression manifested, walking in place above the ground.  With her where three companions, a boy with spiked hair and ridiculous shoes, a dog-man, and a duck with a man’s arms.  Some among her minions recognized the woman and were most displeased.

 

A blue-skinned man with exotic robes of black, and hair of blue-white flame stepped forward.  “Bluebird,” he growled, looking up at the figure.  “Was wonderin’ when she would show up again”

 

“What is so special about this woman?  Is she one of the seven we seek?”  A young pale-skinned man in stately, if baggy, clothes of black, with a single large leather gauntlet, and an eel creature floating around him joined the blue-skinned commenter.  “She hardly cuts an imposing figure.”

 

“Do not be deceived by her less than awe-inspiring appearance,” Maleficent declared, sweeping her hand before her.  “The woman is a Keyblade Master.  A true Master!”  Immediately the gallery erupted into whispers while minions conferred with each other about what they knew of the keyblade, and what being a Master of it meant.

 

One of the more massive minions, an enormous male creature with the upper body of a man, a lower body of a long, narrow tale, and a natural cloak of oily, wing-like flesh hanging from his shoulders loomed over to examine the projection.  “If she begins to seal keyholes, our campaign will be at an end.”  His voice carried power, almost as much as Maleficent’s, but not equally.  “She must be destroyed quickly.”

 

“Indeed.  And so that is the goal I will put to all of you.”  Maleficent cracked her staff upon the floor again.  “As of this moment, our war with the white husks is to be paused.  Defend yourselves when attacked, but abandon the siege of their stronghold.  Abandon the blockade of that effulgent castle.  All our forces are to hunt this woman and her travelling companions, and see them destroyed.”  Many of the minions couldn’t fathom abandoning too fronts of their conquest, and cried out before a simple gesture from Maleficent silenced them.  “Put aside your petty grievances that have splintered our efforts for so long, and work as one body to see this task done.  This woman is a threat to our ascension, there is no glory to be won with defeating her, only the removal of certain defeat.

 

“Now… on to the next reason for the gathering.”  From behind Maleficent, a teenage boy stepped forward.  With hair the color of steel, eyes green as the sea, and clothes of blue and yellow, he was perhaps the least imposing person in the room.  “I present to you, my apprentice… Riku.”

 

\---

 

Pongo and Perdita’s kitchen was busy for quite a long time while Aqua made her treats.  Sora, Donald, and Goofy had long been banished to the dining room along with the dalmatians, and their guests.  The puppies were too clever to remain contained for long, so Aqua had to allow them to run over and around her feet while she worked.

 

It was… nice, to have a task unrelated to the Heartless or Unversed for once in a long while.  She could hear Huey, Dewey, and Louie chatting up their ‘Unca Donald’ about all the business they’d been up to since he’d last seen them, Sora talking with the Suga Mama’s granddaughter about island life, while Goofy and Suga Mama talked about the difficulties of raising children as a single parent.

 

It was Suga Mama’s ice cream maker Aqua used for her little project, since the Duck triplets didn’t have parts for a new one in their general store.  She remembered all the recipes she’d used with them, as if it were yesterday, so she was writing them down as she made each batch of ice cream.  “I hope this little bit of sweetness helps people feel more at home,” she said to the puppies at her feet.  “I’ve got one more batch to make and then I can get started on the custard for you guys.”

 

Two batches of ice cream later, Aqua entered into the lavish dining room where virtually every available space was occupied by someone.  “Fresh Disney Town ice cream,” she declared, pushing a food trolley up to the table.  “Three Sugary Skies for Huey, Dewey and Louie.”  Aqua handed three tri-towered ice cream/cotton candy hybrids to the Duck triplets, smiling at their thanks.  “One Bueno Volcano for Penny.”  A gravy dish filled with vanilla ice cream balls peppered with colored bits centered around a chocolate mound with a vivid red top was passed to the teenage girl sitting next to Suga Mama.  “A Goofy Parfait for its namesake.”

 

A sundae-style ice cream with creamy peanut butter and two long bits of milk chocolate to give the impression of Goofy’s head was passed to the Knight Captain, who in turn passed Donald his ice cream.  “A Donald Fizz for Donald.”  The Fizz was an ice cream bar on a stick, covered in a blue, fizzy layer with a sailor hat made of blueberry syrup and chocolate.  “Double Crunch for Sora.”  A dish filled with equal parts ice cream and fresh fruit, centered around a large dollop of red ice cream with disks of chocolate for Mickey ears was Sora’s treat.

 

“Royalberry for Suga Mama.”  Suga Mama received waffle cone filled with ice and whipped cream, with a dollop of vivid red ice cream, chocolate disks for Minnie ears, and strawberry slices.  “And fourteen dishes of sea salt custard for Pongo, Perdita, and the puppies.”  It took Aqua a bit of time to pass out the small dishes out to the dalmatians, but when she did, she stood alongside the trolley, beaming at the people already enjoying their ice cream.

 

“Say, Aqua,” Sora commented while nibbling on a chocolate coated pretzel stick from his ice cream.  “Where’s your ice cream?”  Aqua froze like a deer in the woods as all of the seated people paused in their enjoyment of the ice cream to look at her.

 

“Um.  I didn’t… make any for me.”  Goofy, Suga Mama, and Sora all grimaced, with the older woman rising out of her chair suddenly.

 

“Now you listen to Suga Mama,” she started.  “I do this enough with Saddie, you gotta look after yourself, too.  Now you go get something for yourself to-”  A sudden ‘ding-dong’ interrupted the tirade before it began.  Aqua took the chance to hastily leave, heading toward the living room.

 

“I’ll get that!”  She sighed in relief at escaping a lecture from an elder just when she was starting to relax.  “Should have just made an extra dish of sea salt custard, oh well.”  At the front door she found Sadira, much less frazzled than the last time they’d talked.  “Oh, hello.”

 

“Hey!”  Sadira threw her arms and grinned wide.  “I found someone willing to take you with them on their travels for a bit.  And they’re not asking much in return, either, just some magic lessons.”  Aqua smiled, relieved that it was something so minor.

 

“Thank you.  Do you know where I can meet them, and get the details sorted?”

 

Sadira nodded quickly and gestured down the alley.  “I brought him with me so you two could talk briefly.  Master Aqua, meet Captain Hector Barbossa.”  Sadira stepped aside to show a man in once-opulent but now ragged trousers, heavy jacket and button up shirt, with a broad-brimmed hat with an ostrich feather in the bill, and a pockmarked, scraggly-bearded face.

 

He smiled, showing a hint of awful teeth, before he removed his hat and bowed deeply.  “A pleasure to be makin’ yer acquaintance, miss.”  He had a distinct accent, that Aqua couldn’t place.

 

“And to you too, Captain.  Does your ship have enough room for me and my friends?”  The Captain stood tall, revealing he had been slightly crouched behind Sadira to hide, and returned his hat to his head.

 

“Aye, plenty of room.  And seein’ as your stunning beauty will be something my men haven’t seen in far too long, I will be giving you the Captain’s Quarters for the voyage.  Plenty of room for you and yer strange companions, aye.”

 

“That’s quite gentlemanly, Captain, but I don’t mean to put you out of your own quarters….”  The man waved a hand at the notion, letting Aqua see it was laden with rings.

 

“Tis no trouble at all.”  Barbossa outright grinned at her.  “Iffin the magic ye teach to me an’ me crew be useful, I can stand to be without a single room for a voyage or several.”  Aqua could sense a strong vein of darkness with Barbossa, it wasn’t even something she needed to take time to feel out - the darkness practically oozed from his heart.

 

“Tell me, Captain.”  Her tone was soft, but strong.  She closed the door to the dalmatian’s house behind her and stood out in the alleyway.  “Before your world fell… what is it you did for a living?”

 

Barbossa’s smile somehow widened, and he laughed strong, from his belly.  “I won’t lie to you, Miss.  Me and me crew were pirates.  Raidin’, murderin’, and thievin’ pirates.  And not a one of us regret those times.”  All at once the mirthful expression on Barbossa’s face vanished, in place of a scowl.  “But, our world fell.  And so many others did too.  It be like the end times… me an’ mine want the world to keep on goin’, in the hopes that things will become stable.  And… profitable.”  As he spoke, Aqua’s brow pinched progressively more in a frown.  “You can levy any word of curse at me, or my men, and it would be true.  But even we don’t want the end of all things.”

 

Self-preservation was a motivation Aqua could understand.  She’d fought for her life enough to know how it worked.  The Captain reminded her of Braig, Xehanort’s lackey, but also Luxord, the one who had helped her out of the realm of darkness so she could be a poison for Xehanort’s schemes.  And she remembered her conversation with the Fairy Godmother.  To fight Barbossa’s darkness… she needed to trust in the light.

 

So she took a deep breath and forced her face into a pleasant smile.  “Very well.  We’ll sail with you, Captain.”  Aqua held her hand out to shake, which Barbossa took and gave a strong shake with.

 

“Pleasure to have you, Miss Aqua.”

 

“ _Master_  Aqua, Captain.”  She let a small amount of ice flow down her hand into the Captain’s arm.  Barbossa pulled his hand back sharply, while Aqua kept smiling.  “So tell me, what is your ship named?”

 

The Captain was preoccupied with staring at his hand, transfixed, until Sadira prodded him gently.  “Ah yes.  I be Captain of the lovely ship  _Black Pearl_ , Mis-... Master Aqua.”  He regained his bombastic tone of voice and gestured grandly.  “And on the morrow, we be sailing… for the Olympus Coliseum!”

 

\----

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *He's a Pirate intensifies*
> 
> I'm personally of the opinion that the song is appropriate for both Barbossa and Jack.


	11. Lost friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sora and Aqua talk about missing their friends.

\----Chapter 11: Lost friends.

 

Sora had been so excited to hear they’d be sailing on a  _pirate ship_  he couldn’t sleep.  At least, he thought that’d been the reason for the first couple of hours.  After three or so hours of looking up at the ceiling, he started to wonder if excitement was really what was keeping him up.  With sleep not coming quickly, he got out of the bed Pongo and Perdita had provided and left the house altogether.

 

Back on the islands, a good bit of practice always got him tired enough for a nap, so he was going to train more with the keyblade some more.  People were sleeping, but considering it was always night in Traverse Town, he imagined there were always people sleeping.  So he looked around for an area that was open, but he didn’t need to worry about disturbing people.  The courtyard in front of the fountain looked promising, especially since Heartless would sometimes show up there.

 

Most of his time was spent doing the exercises Aqua had shown him to help with the keyblade’s weight.  With Cure and Esuna magic, he could just fix his muscles whenever they started to ache, and keep going for longer than perhaps he should have.  Having  _magic_  still made Sora smile wide when he stopped to think about it.  Even if he couldn’t do the impressive stuff like make barriers, jump and dash through the air, or create massive fireballs, having  _magic_  was so cool.

 

Merlin and Donald had done a lot to try and teach Sora about the  _math_  of magic.  But when it obviously hadn’t worked, the grumpy magicians had called in the Fairy Godmother and Aqua to give it a shot.  Not surprisingly, Aqua asking where Sora was struggling and the Fairy Godmother’s insight had gotten him to understand  _some_  of the stuff behind magic.

 

“Magic is art just as much as science,” Aqua had told him, with grudging nods from Merlin and Donald.  “While  _knowing_  how it works can help you a lot, you can get by just  _feeling_  how it should work.”  From there, she and the Fairy Godmother had been able to help Sora feel out how different types of magic worked.

 

At least Aqua hadn’t assigned him homework on magic to make him understand the math and science part, Sora was grateful for.  While he was moving from pose to pose, something came to mind.  “If I can do magic by feeling it, and the keyblade is a magic weapon….”  Sora paused in his talking to himself to quickly throw the keyblade as he had against the Air Soldiers.  While it was in the air he tried to  _feel_  it curving in the air and come back.  The spinning weapon curved upward in the air, but then began spinning back towards him.  “It worked!”  He held his hand out to try and catch it, but instead had the teeth of the blade smack his hand.

 

Sora hopped around, holding his hand while pain rolled out of it from the hit, and the keyblade span behind him to land in the fountain.  “The trick is to call it back to your hand right before it gets to you.”  Sora looked up to see Aqua casually making her way over to him, an understanding expression on her face.  “Makes it look like you caught it, but doesn’t risk breaking any fingers.”  Sora nodded, and summoned the keyblade to his hand, immediately casting Cure to fix it up.  Aqua moved to stand beside him, calling forth her keyblade and moving through the exercise poses.  Getting the hint, Sora did so as well.  “Couldn’t sleep?”

 

“Yeah.  I thought it was excitement.  We’re sailing on a  _pirate ship_  tomorrow.”  His mind filled with pictures of himself with a parrot on his shoulder, Donald walking around with two peg legs, Goofy with an eyepatch, and Aqua with a pirate hat.  “But… it comes and goes, and I’m still not tired.”

 

“What does your heart tell you?”  Sora looked at Aqua, bewildered, which drove her to sigh.  “Just… go to a quiet place in your mind, and listen.  Your heart will try to tell you what’s wrong, and from there I can help.”

 

“That sounds like girl stuff, but okay.”  Sora stopped the exercise to try and do as he’d been told.  Find a quiet spot in his mind… the quietest spot he’d ever known was that dream where he stood on the stained glass.  But when he went to think about it, he immediately remembered Kairi waking him up from that dream, and Riku chiding him about not working on the raft.  “Oh.  I guess that’s what’s up.”

 

“See?  Want to talk about it?”

 

Sora sighed, noticing how Aqua was speeding up the exercises, and sped up to keep pace.  “I guess… this is the start of going out to look for my friends.  And I’m afraid that they’ll get here while we’re away.”  He expected Aqua to say something about it, perhaps to try and make her feel better, but she was silent, so he continued.  “I know that we’ve got those photos so they’ll know we were here… but what if they get here just as the Heartless attack again?  Or what if something happens to us while we’re out there and we don’t find them?”

 

“I know how you feel.  And I imagine Goofy and Donald do too.”  Sora watched Aqua do a one-handed cartwheel to change positions and continued the exercises.  He tried to do the same, but ended up landing on his back.  “All you can do is trust in your heart to guide you where your friends are.”  Sora tried to look cool and collected while he got up on his feet again, but Aqua didn’t appear to be paying him much attention.  She had a distant expression, and her eyes were staring off into the fountain, but unfocused.  They stayed like that a while, going through the exercises with increasing speed, then moving positions.  It took him a few tries, but Sora managed to get a rough rolling motion down that let him clear a fair bit of distance.  Not as graceful as Aqua’s cartwheel, but effective.

 

“Say, Aqua.  Er-, Master Aqua, um….”

 

“Just Aqua when you’re talking  _to_  me.  Master Aqua when you’re talking  _about_  me.” 

 

“Ah, thanks.  Um.  What are your friends like?”  That caused Aqua to pause in the exercises before walking over to a bench.  Sora at first was going to keep going, but he noted the faint look of sadness in Aqua’s face so stopped and began to awkwardly rub at the back of his neck.  “Is that… a bad subject?”

 

“No.”  It sounded like was to Sora.  “Terra and Ventus… they’re boys, so they’re reckless and hot headed.”  The sad look continued but she added in a smile, which made Sora think something bad happened to her friends.  “Terra… I think you met him once before.  He had this symbol too,” she indicated the strange medal on her chest.  “He’s strong, fiercely loyal to his friends, and tends to make everything dramatic even when he doesn’t mean to.”

 

“He sounds a lot like Riku!”  Aqua laughed a bit, which Sora played at being miffed about.  “What’s so funny?”

 

“Well, my other friend Ventus, he’s always running off without thinking about stuff, and trying to be friends with everyone.  Remind you of someone?”  It  _did_  seem familiar, Sora found, but he was unable to pinpoint specifically whom.

 

“Um…  Suga Mama?  Goofy?”  She didn’t react at first, so he thought he’d said something wrong, but then she started to laugh.  At first she tried to force it down, closing both her hands over her mouth and nose, but within minutes she was laughing louder than Sora had ever heard.  It came out of nowhere from Sora’s perspective, so he didn’t get infected with the laughter, only letting out a mild chuckle.  “Hey, what’s so funny?”

 

“I just…  I just imagined Suga Mama in Ven’s outfit… swooping around.”  She had to take long pauses between fits of laughter.  Sora waited while she laughed some more before she could control herself again.  When she was done, Aqua’s face was red and lined with tears from the excessive mirth.  “Alright.  Alright, I’m okay.”  She took a deep breath and was back to a serious face.  A good natured serious face, but still serious.  “I know where Ven is, so I just need to find Terra.  And I know Terra’s out there.  I just have to trust that we’ll see each other again.”

 

She said it so casually, and even despite her previous laughter Sora could tell it made her sort of sad.  But there wasn’t any doubt.  “Then… I’ll have to trust that me and my friends’ll see each other again too!”

 

“Yep.  But now I think you need to go to bed, ‘cause we have a boat to catch in four hours, and Captain Barbossa made it clear we’re supposed to help around the ship while we’re his guests.”  That deflated Sora’s good mood well and proper, but he walked back to the dalmatian’s house with Aqua without complaint.  Working on a ship wouldn’t be so bad if it meant he could look for his friends.

 

\---

 

The  _Black Pearl_  was a three-masted galleon, obviously an ocean vessel from the parasites affixed to her hull, and the nautical design.  But she floated above the ground outside the town, just on the edge of the rock.  When the King’s men and the keyblade wielders arrived, they found the crew hard at work getting the ship ready to set sail, with Captain Barbossa only occasionally shouting orders.  More often than not, it was a dark-skinned well muscled man with no shirt who was giving the orders to the pirate crew.

 

Sora was utterly enraptured, but Donald and Goofy were hesitant.  “Are ya sure this is a good idea, Master Aqua?”  Goofy asked on his and Donald’s behalf while they waited for permission to board the ship.

 

She kept her eyes up, locked on the Captain.  He would glance down at them, and confer with some of his crew.  From what she could hear, there were two opinions from the crew: that she would bring bad luck from being aboard, and that it could cause some of the men to take… liberties.  Barbossa was dealing with them, and if they took liberties with her, she’d deal with them too.  “No,” Aqua said, not making a big deal of the issue.  “But it’s our best bet to get moving towards finding the King and our missing friends.”  She glanced at Sora, who smiled confidently.  But she didn’t focus on his smile, instead her mind was occupied on his yellow eyes.  She’d hoped that, given time, they’d go back to normal but there was no sign of blue in them yet.  So either it needed more time, or there would be no reversing it.  Just one more mistake for the ghost of Master Eraqus to berate her over.  Aqua went back to looking at the ship, this time looking for lingering magic in the hull.  “And… I think this ship has some gummi blocks worked into the wood.  There’s definitely something there shielding against the darkness.”

 

“Wonder how they get it to fly,” Sora commented, looking down at how the ship bobbed slightly in the air just above the ground.  “If they can do this already, why do they need magic lessons?”

 

Donald scoffed.  “A  _real_  magic teacher can teach you how to brew victory, summon fortune, and call down the elements on your enemies.”

 

“Then how come you can’t do any of those things, Donald?”  Aqua snickered a bit at the venomous look Donald gave Sora before the teenager and Goofy’s laughter made him start chasing after them, and brandishing his staff.  Occasionally lighting would strike just behind their heels, all the while Donald shouted in an incoherent accent Aqua couldn’t understand.

 

Barbossa gestured down to Aqua, presumably granting permission to board.  She walked up the gangplank while the boys continued to act like boys.  “I wonder if Zack or Hercules became true heroes since I last saw them,” Aqua commented to herself while pointedly ignoring the looks she was getting from the crew as she stepped on board.  “Kinda hoping Zack doesn’t remember his date idea, though.  But, who knows, it might be fun.”

 

\----

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When Aqua says swooping, she means using the Sky Climber command style.  Which Suga Mama would kick maximum booty with.
> 
> Also, consider taking a moment to cast a vote: http://www.strawpoll.me/13613918
> 
> The winning result will be the design of the Ultima Weapon as it will appear in this fic.


	12. Your blood runs cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A voyage begins, and poor life decisions are made.

 

\----Chapter 12:  Your blood runs cold.

 

Sora had thought the Pearl had been a cool ship simply from the name.  But when he saw the black hull and ragged black sails, he just couldn’t help but gush over the ship to Donald and Goofy.  Aqua was at the rear part of the ship, where the helm was, so she probably saw Sora’s excitement from afar.

 

The muscular black man was the ship’s bosun, or his name was Bo’sun, or both were true, Sora was a little afraid to ask.  He clearly was not taking having passengers well, all but growling the information he was conveying to the three of them about where areas in the ship were called and what happened there.  “Captain’s orders,” the tall, muscular man snarled down at the three of them following the lecture, “are that none of you are to go belowdecks without him accompanying you.  Understood?”

 

“Yes sir!”  “Uh-huh.”  “Aye aye,” responded Goofy, Donald, and Sora in order.  Their guide didn’t particularly care for Sora’s use of pirate lingo, but bade them go away without further lecturing.  Not given any tasks to do, the three of them went towards the poop deck, where the helm was located and where Barbossa and Aqua were chatting.

 

“... the magicks of the wind be my prime concern, Master Aqua,” they arrived in time to hear Captain Barbossa say to the blunette.  “With the wind at her back, the  _Pearl_  be the fastest ship ever sailed.  I trust you can accommodate such a lesson?”

 

“Wind magic’s easy to learn,” Aqua evenly responded, watching the rapidly vanishing Traverse Town.  “Me and Donald can put train you and a few of your crew in it as you wish.  It’ll take more than one voyage to teach you how to call winds strong enough to move this ship, though.  Especially if you want to fight with it too.”

 

“Ah, Master Aqua, I have nothin’ but time to learn, and practice.”  Sora, Donald and Goofy were about to head over to chat with Aqua for a bit, but Barbossa spoke up again.  “But now, I have to be askin’ you and your companions to head down to the quarters given you.  The Heartless will be descendin’ upon us, and we can hardly afford to lose our valued guests.”

 

“Hey, we can fight Heartless,” Donald objected, stamping his webbed foot.  Barbossa only grinned and adjusted the ship’s heading slightly.

 

“Aye, ye can.  But these be Heartless ships, not the Heartless themselves.  The only ones of you I’m certain can handle the fight we’re about to partake in be Master Aqua.  And I would rather keep such a powerful ally in reserve, so me crew don’t grow accustomed to the luxury of her presence.”

 

“If you need help, just let us know,” Aqua said, turning away from the railing to walk down the stairs and into the room directly below the poop deck.  The three of them just stared, shocked she would agree to being so passive.

 

“Go on, gentleman.  Follow yer lady's example.”  Sora frowned at the Captain, who only smiled in response.  “Young man, you look to have had a nasty brush with creatures of darkness already.  Eagerness to return to battle might be a sign o’ maddness.”  Sora wanted to ask Barbossa what he meant by that, but found himself being herded by Goofy and Donald toward the stairs.

 

The room below the poop deck, what had once been the Captain’s quarters, was an enormous room filled with luxury.  Impressive windows lined the back, a rich carpet covered the floor, and the wood was carved to make to excellent effect.  The one room seemed more opulent than any rich person’s house Sora had seen, and he rushed around to look at all the fancy bits.  At the middle, there was an enormous table with an intricate carving Sora couldn’t identify.

 

In the back of the room, behind a bed and next to one of the windows, Aqua was conversing with a pillar of light in which a strange pink creature with tiny wings, an enormous red nose, and an antenna ending in a puffy red pom.  “Whatcha doin’, Aqua?”  Goofy was the first to talk to her about the sight.

 

She briefly looked aside to Goofy before dropping several munny blocks into the pink creature’s… handless limb, Sora realized.  The gems vanished before they made contact, however.  “Just placing an order for something.  It should be ready by the time we complete the voyage.”  The creature made some sort of chirping noise, coinciding with its nose contracting and expanding.  Sora was stunned by thinking that maybe it wasn’t a nose, but a mouth.  “Now Sora, come over here.  Time for another lesson.”  Sora abandoned examining the room to meet Aqua at the table.

 

“What’s the lesson?  More magic?  Some neat trick with the keyblade?”  Aqua shook her head and gestured.  A shaft of light similar to what the pink creature stood in appeared, inside which shone a silhouette of a keyhole.

 

“This is a keyhole.  Big ones, around this size, lead to the heart of a world.  While we’re looking for your friends, we’re going to need to find them and lock them with the keyblade.  If we don’t lock them, the Heartless can steal their hearts.”  Donald and Goofy looked at the projected keyhole from all sides, while Sora scratched his head, confused.

 

“Why aren’t they locked all the time?”

 

“Because it doesn’t last.”  Aqua shrugged at Sora’s confused expression.  “A locked keyhole only stays that way for… three, to five years, I think?  Then it unseals itself.  But, and I know this will be hard to grasp, sealing the keyhole has to come as a priority to every world we find, okay?”

 

“Well yeah, if the Heartless get it, the whole world will vanish, right?”  Aqua nodded, and Sora pumped his arms in a strongman pose.  “So we gotta save the day and lock them up.”

 

“You can’t let anyone stop you from getting to a world’s keyhole if you know where it is, alright?  Some folks might be under the Heartless’ control, or for some reason want their world to fall, you can’t let them.”

 

“Uh, that sounds an awful lot like meddling,” Goofy carefully commented.

 

“It sounds  _exactly_  like meddling,” Donald huffed.

 

“Because it is.”  Aqua’s expression was tough, like when she was fighting the Heartless.  “There are too few worlds for us to not meddle in the affairs of other worlds.  And with the barriers between the worlds broken down, not telling people about other worlds is pointless.  With men like Captain Barbossa around, actively travelling between them, they probably already know.”

 

“The  _King’s orders_ -”  Donald was cut off by the sound of boots on wood.  Everyone looked around to see Captain Barbossa entering with a wry smile.

 

“Never been a fan o’ King’s men, master magician.  They tend toward foolishly clinging to the words of absentee lords, rather than their own senses.”  Barbossa laughed softly while Donald scowled.  “Ye need not fear me or me crew givin’ ya grief about it, the times be tryin’ enough without pickin’ at old grudges.  Ain’t even met your King, don’t know iffin he has treasure worth killin’ for.”  Now Goofy, Donald, and Sora were all scowling at him, but Barbossa ignored them, walking over to the opposite end of the table.  “Now, Master Aqua, I hate to impose upon ye so soon, but we’ve spotted a rather sizeable fleet approachin’. And it be rather significantly larger than what we been expectin’.”

 

“I understand,” she said, ignoring an attempt by Donald to draw her back to the topic they’d been discussing.  “Sora, Donald, Goofy, stay in here.  Only come out once it’s safe.”  Aqua briskly exited the room, followed by the Captain.”

 

Minutes passed, with Donald stewing in his rage, Sora pouting from not getting to fight on a pirate ship, and Goofy trying to help the two of them feel better with kind words.  All at once, they heard a racket coming out from the deck, and felt the ship shudder so much that a dozen unlit candles fell off the charts table.  Muffled by the wood, they could hear Barbossa shouting ‘fire!’ and ‘brace!’ from the helm.  Sora actually saw Aqua zooming around in her Black Coat, riding her keyblade-bike through the back windows.

 

It was then he noticed… there were Heartless everywhere.  Heartless ships, he guessed, as they all bore the emblem he’d seen on Heartless.  They were colorful, bright, and varied in shapes and sizes, but they were surrounding the  _Pearl_  if the view was accurate.  Bolts of white energy sailed out from the ships, to pummel on the  _Pearl_.  One of them struck close to the windows, spider-webbing the glass from the impact.

 

“We have to get out there and help!”  Sora decided, seeing just  _how many_  enemies there were.  Even if all he could do was throw his keyblade, or shoot weak fireballs, he thought every bit could help.  Donald and Goofy nodded, gathering light at their hands to summon their weapons  - a short scepter and a round shield respectively.  Sora easily called his keyblade to his hand, and the three of them ran for the door.  While Goofy and Donald were able to get to the double doors and pass through just fine, Sora instead rebound off an invisible wall that lit up faint purple, with a chiming sound.

 

He stumbled back, rubbing his nose as it stung from the impact, and tried repeatedly to get out.  Each time, the invisible wall threw him back almost two feet.  No one on the outside seemed to be able to hear him when he shouted for someone to let him out.  “Ah, good, you’re alone.”  An oily voice without a discernable source said from the room behind him, prompting Sora to turn, and drop into his combat stance.  There seemed to be no one in the room, but if invisible walls existed, invisible people could too.

 

“Who’s there?  Show yourself!”

 

“Geeze, demanding kid.”  A sound like a finger snapping precipitated a pillar of smoke and fire appearing near the window.  When it cleared, a tall man in black robes, with blue skin, an elongated face, dagger teeth and flaming hair stood in its place.  “Hi, how ya’ doin’?  Hades, Lord of the Dead.”  He didn’t  _look_  like a Heartless so Sora relaxed his stance somewhat and crouch-walked back into the room.

 

“What are you doing here?  Did you put that wall up so I couldn’t leave?”  Hades snapped his fingers and pointed at Sora, allowing Sora to realize how  _unnaturally skinny_  Hades’ fingers were.

 

“Right on the money.  Wanted to have a quick word with ya, talk business.  Incredibly handsome god to pint-sized runt.”  Scowling, Sora tried to throw his keyblade at Hades, but instead the man exploded into smoke with a snap of his fingers.  The keyblade continued through where he had been, smashing through a window before Sora could call it back.  With another finger-snapping sound, a pillar of smoke bloomed right next to Sora, and one of Hades’ blue arms reached through to place a hand on his shoulder.  “Temper temper.  I’m just here to make you an offer, kid.”

 

“I’m not a kid,” Sora yanked his shoulder out of Hades’ grip just in time for another shudder through the ship to knock him off his feet.

 

“Well you’re certainly no sailor with those sea-legs.”  Hades vanished in a puff of smoke, reappearing at the windows again.  “C’mon, you can see the battle better from here.”  Unsure of what game Hades was playing, Sora walked over to the windows, but not next to Hades.  He kept the keyblade out just in case he needed to defend himself.  The battle outside was just as impossible-looking as when Sora’d last looked.  Occasionally he could see Aqua dashing between Heartless ships, leaving them to break apart and explode.  But every time she did, another seemed to move into the place she’d just cleared.  “Not looking so good for bluebird, huh?”

 

Sora glared at Hades, who seemed shocked for a moment, muttering something about seeing the expression before.  “You know, the Heartless will take your heart too if they get on board.”  Hades scoffed, gesturing flippantly.

 

“ _Eh_  maybe, maybe, maybe.  But you see?  Those Heartless out there?  They work for me.”  All at once Sora was in his guard stance again, ready to fend off an attack from Hades that didn’t come.  The ‘lord of the dead’ rolled his eyes and sighed.  “Pipsqueak if I was going to smack you around, you’d be bouncin’ off the walls.  Now,  _watch this_.”  Hades made a viciously glee-filled expression as he snapped his fingers again.  The ships outside all stopped firing at the same time, drawing Sora to take his eyes off the blue man and focus outside.  With another snap, they started firing again - but not at the  _Pearl_.  Every single ship Sora could see turned their guns and focused their fire on Aqua.

 

“No!”  She was able to stay out of a complete crossfire, but he saw her have to use her barrier to block more than one big hit from a Heartless ship.  Sora charged at Hades, leaping and swinging the keyblade to try and stike his stupid oval face.  The blue man’s expression of sadistic glee shifted into boredom like a switch had been flipped, and he caught the keyblade with one hand, holding Sora aloft with no strain.

 

“You hero types are so  _predictable_.  Even darkness-stained  _schlemiels_  like you.”  Hades held Sora in the air for a moment longer before dropping him.  “One would think you’d want to hear my business proposal before the bluebird becomes the  _scorch mark_ , you catch my meaning?”

 

While being held up, Sora couldn’t help but notice how hard it was getting for Aqua to escape the focus fire.  Her barriers were appearing more and more.  It was only a matter of time before she was only able to block.  Sora hadn’t seen her barrier  _break_  from anything yet, but he figured an entire Heartless fleet could do it with enough time.  “Alright, talk!”  A bit of red entered Hades’ hair for a moment, but it faded quickly.

 

“Alright, here’s how it goes.  I call the attack off.  Let bluebird and the mooks on this ship go free.”  With a devilish smile, Hades held up one finger and bent over to look Sora in the eye.  “On one condition.”

 

\---

 

Aqua knew  _knew_  something was wrong when the ships that had been a hair’s breadth away from catching her in a real crossfire ceased their attack and broke off their assault of the  _Pearl_.  She did a scan of the ship before she landed - the  _Black Pearl_  being incredibly fast with a wind behind her had proved true.  All Aqua had to do was put an Aeroga spell on the sails, and pretty much the entire fleet had to chase after her.  There were some gaps in the hull where the brig hadn’t been fast enough to avoid debris in the path she’d been escaping on, but all in all the only dangerous part of the attack had been when Aqua became their focus.

 

But  _something was wrong_.  Her heart was practically screaming at her that something wasn’t right.  When she was about to come in for a landing, she heard someone from the deck shout “Man overboard!”  Donald and Goofy were waving her down near the helm - she’d told them to  _stay inside_  - but her budding outrage stopped cold, just like her heart.

 

She couldn’t see Sora anywhere.

 

There was  _no way_  the boy would stay in the Captain’s quarters if Donald and Goofy hadn’t.  She pulled up alongside the  _Pearl_ ’s poop deck while Barbossa swung the brig around hard to starboard.  Donald and Goofy immediately went to the railing and began talking over each other while Aqua pulled her hood down.  “Hold on - slow down - I can’t understand,” she tried to tell them, but they didn’t seem to hear.

 

“Mr. Ragetti, the helm,” she heard Barbossa say before he stomped over and roughly pushed Donald and Goofy aside, looking only a few seconds away from outright rage.  “These cack-handed deckapes abandoned their post, and say the boy came with ‘em, but none of me crew has seen hide or hair of ‘im.  He musta fallen overboard durin’ the attack.”  Aqua froze from the news, no longer seeing Barbossa, the ship, or Mickey’s friends - instead realizing how Master Eraqus must have felt watching Ven run away from home.  A cold that started at her heart and worked its way through her veins with alarming quickness.

 

\----

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not feeling too confident in Hades' dialogue.  Is there enough ham?  Hopefully it'll get better from practice and watching videos.
> 
> In other news, trusting blue fire men is revealed to be a poor decision.  Who knew?


	13. Coping with decisions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aqua starts writing a book, and Sora eavesdrops.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hades is so fun to write.

 

\----Chapter 13: Coping with decisions.

 

Aqua didn’t speak to Donald or Goofy for the entire rest of the trip to Olympus Coliseum. Not out of outrage, but because she was operating largely on as few thoughts or emotions possible.  She’d spent so long out in the space between worlds, looking for Sora, that she’d almost passed out on her glider from dehydration.  After she got back to the  _Black Pearl_ , with still no sign of Sora, the Captain had to give the order to return to their course.

 

Aqua hadn’t liked the decision, but she understood it.  She wished she had Master Yen Sid’s ability to sense people at great distances, it would at least let her know if Sora was alive.

 

It was strange just how much she could get done without being fully herself, Aqua realized.  In the days that followed Sora’s disappearance she taught Barbossa and his chosen lieutenants the basics of magic alongside Donald, specifically wind magic.  She met a third member of the King’s friends that had hidden away in Goofy’s hat, a cricket-man named Jiminy, who served as a scribe recording their adventures.

 

Meeting Jiminy made her realize the story of Master Eraqus, Terra, Ven, and herself would go untold if she fell.  Or if she ‘vanished’ again for another ten years.  So she purchased a journal from the Moogle store in the Captain’s Quarters, and began to record her story.  She started from the very beginning - when she had the keyblade inheritance ceremony performed on her back at her homeworld, by Master Lulu.

 

Aqua grew up in a busy city called Bevelle, the where technology and magic were woven together, and people lifted their voices to praise the local god, Yevon.  Aqua remembered seeing Master Lulu through a crowd of people, and being struck by her beauty.  She wore a heavy dress that restricted her movements, but Aqua could not remember exactly how it looked.  But Master Lulu’s face she remembered vividly, long dark hair done up in an elaborate bun pierced with needles that bore the Mark of Mastery on them like charms, her bangs covering one eye.

 

She’d left her babysitter and sisters to follow after the strange woman, and watched as she worked small bits of magic to help the people she passed.  She’d infused a cure spell into her hand, and brushed it along an old woman’s flank to ease her pain.  Two younger children who were about to drop their ice cream found it floated in the air for them to safely recover.  These and more, Aqua saw as she followed after.

 

She’d followed all the way to the edge of town, where fiendish monsters lurked.  Master Lulu hadn’t bothered to summon her keyblade - destroying them with magic and a disdainful look.  Until one had gone after Aqua, hiding behind some rocks.  Master Lulu’s keyblade had appeared from thin air and cut the fiend in two.

 

Aqua had gotten a stern lecture about following people to dangerous places, and how foolish it was to lurk near a battlefield.  But then Master Lulu offered her keyblade’s hilt, and spoke the words of the rite.  Then she bent down and placed an enchantment upon an amulet, and gave it to Aqua.  “When you give the power within you shape, this will take you to where you need to go for instruction,” the Master had told her.

 

She was only slightly younger than Ven was upon first calling her keyblade to help her fight off fiends attacking her in nearly the exact same spot.  Thinking about how long ago that seemed almost shook Aqua out of her emotionally numb state.  Bevelle had probably held out long against the Heartless, but she didn’t expect it to still be there.

 

Her family must have felt as she did now - worried and drained to the point where they couldn’t  _feel_  anymore or they’d go crazy - after she left suddenly to study with Master Eraqus.  She hadn’t thought about them in so long, and when she tried to remember them she found she couldn’t remember their faces, or how their voices sounded.  Not even her friends.  Not even her parents.

 

Rather than dwell, Aqua went back to her journal.  She wrote of how Master Lulu had appeared when the magic amulet she’d given Aqua responded to Aqua’s keyblade.  Then she took her away through the Lanes Between to the Land of Departure, where she met Master Eraqus, and Terra.  Terra had been so  _gangly_  back then, sort of like Hercules but much shorter.  Tripping over himself, with all the grace of a drunk in a fight.  He’d been brought by earlier by a woman she never would end up meeting: Master Lightning.  Master Lulu left Aqua to be taught by Master Eraqus, then returned to her wandering.

 

Years later, word would reach Master Eraqus via his friend Yen Sid that both Masters Lulu and Lightning had been struck down.  The Master was despondent for weeks, and despite leaving to investigate several times, the circumstances around their deaths were never discovered.  In hindsight, Aqua realized, Xehanort probably had some involvement if he wasn’t their murderer himself.

 

“Is this why you didn’t take students, Mickey?”  Aqua asked herself in her thoughts while continuing to write.  “Did you try, but they vanished or were struck down by the Heartless?  If that’s the case - why didn’t you have your friends help you?”  She ignored a bitter, angry part of herself that cried out about how well Donald and Goofy had looked after  _her_  student.  “I should have taken him to the Castle… but there isn’t time to train him in the old way.  There are too few worlds left for us to hide away and train.”

 

A sudden cry from the deck prompted her to quickly close the journal, and hide it away in a magic pocket.  The sound was shouting about ‘land, ho’.  They had arrived.

 

\--

 

Sora woke up in a strange room of blue-black rock.  The air felt oppressive, like it was pushing him down, the lines of the room’s architecture was unnerving.  Sora wanted to leave, but when he moved, he found he was bound with… smoke?  Seemingly normal smoke, but it hunt in rings around his arms and legs, pinning them and also anchoring him to an uncomfortably firm padded slab.  After the struggles to be free proved useless, Sora examined the room some more.  It resembled a doctor’s exam room, with posters advertising ghostly people being thrown into a green river with the general tone being acceptance.

 

“Hello?”  He called, hoping to get someone to explain what was going on.  “Is anyone here?”  There was no response, so after some wiggling Sora called the keyblade to his hand and tried to get it to cut through the smoke.  Alas, his wrist couldn’t rotate enough to get at the smoke, even if he summoned the keyblade in a reverse grip.  He tried several times before admitting it just wouldn’t work.  Suddenly an idea came to him.  “Cleanse!”  Sora cast Esuna on himself, hoping that it would remove the smoke.  The glow of the spell fought against the smoke bindings, and while it didn’t dispel them it provided enough wiggle room for Sora to strike them with the keyblade, and thus free himself, and leave the exam room.

 

Sora found himself in a hallway not disimilar to a doctor’s office or hospital ward, with numbered room on either side, strange measurement equipment, and other such things.  His gut told him to go for the door marked ‘EXIT’ first as soon as he saw it, but something pulled at him to look around, to search the rooms deeper in.  The rooms were mostly empty, except an occasional withered, ghostly figure that gave Sora odd looks as he apologized and closed the doors quickly.

 

However one room had a voice coming through it, so Sora carefully opened it up to peak inside.  Inside was an office decorated in skulls, with angular black lines on the blue stonework.  Hades sat behind an impressively large and decorated desk, talking into a green orb in his hands.  “... How should  _I_  know where it is?”  The ‘lord of the underworld’ said, in an agitated tone, his fire-hair briefly turning yellow.  “All I know, is it isn’t in the dang kid. ...I don’t know what oracle you talked to but  _it isn’t in there_.  I spent  _four hours_  looking,  _that’s_  I know you glorified lizard!”  His head and shoulders became engulfed in vivid red fire that lit up the whole room.

 

Sora hid behind the door, dodging a wave of heat and smoke directly in the eye, before peeking back in to see the orb electrocute Hades painfully.  He spent a moment panting and smoking after finally being released before speaking again.  “Sorry, sorry, sorry.  Didn’t mean to speak out of turn, your scaly-ness.  Just a little bit  _frustrated_.  Set up a top-tier smash and grab to get the kid and  _it isn’t there_.  Whaddya want done with the kid now?”  Confused about what was supposed to be inside him that apparently wasn’t, Sora opened the door a bit more to stick his head further in.  “Yeah, there was another light in there, but it’s in twenty-six pieces.  You want me to get it out, I’d need to spend a  _lot_  of time getting it all glued back together. …  Uh-uh, ain’t the one we’re looking for, it’s blue instead of pink if you catch my drift.  … Hate to break it to you but this ain’t exactly a daycare I’m running here.  You want me to look after him until your brat’s ready for the carrot, then I need a bit more operational freedom.”

 

Hades perked up as a faint blue light coated his body, and the call ended with the orb vanishing.  “Hoo!  Almost makes me not want to  _saute_  you for eavesdropping, kid.”  With a snap of his fingers, Hades vanished from his office chair, and reappeared looming over Sora by the door as well.  “Get a good show?”

 

Sora tried to make a break for it, but only made it a few feet before he was yanked upside down by his ankle.  One of Hades’ arms had become entirely of smoke - and Sora noticed the god’s robe hems had a similar effect - and was carrying him back towards the god.  “Let me go!”  Hades rolled his eyes while Sora swung at the smoke arm holding him to no effect.  With an imperious snap, the entire area changed.  No longer were they in a doctor’s office sort of building, but instead floating high in a cavern, with an enormous river of green water.  In the distance, Sora saw a strange building shaped like a skull hanging from the cavern roof with its teeth reaching all the way to the water’s edge.

 

“A poor choice of words, young man.”  Suddenly the force holding Sora aloft vanished, and he started to plummet toward the water below.  Sora’d been diving off high places since he was old enough to row to the island on his own, and he’d learned a lot from watching Tidus’ dad practice.  He knew a fall from the height he’d been at would be fatal, and flailed about trying to think of a way to slow himself down.  The green water came closer and closer while he tried to think - he saw  _people_  floating in the water - there was nothing he could do.  And then suddenly he was far away from the water again, floating alongside Hades again who grinned at Sora.  “So, you learned your lesson about snooping?”

 

“Uh… yeah?”  Sora’s voice was unsteady from being so close to a very real death.

 

“Excellent, now let’s talk your stay here in the lovely Hotel Hades.  We’ve got golfing, soul-fishing, fire skeet shooting, Elysian tennis.  All sorts of things.”  Hades snapped his fingers and the two of them vanished and reappeared in a throne room.  From the two gaping windows and sort of familiar view, he guessed they were in the skull he’d seen before.  In the middle of the enormous room was a table with a map along its surface, and multiple small figurines in odd places.  Hades was already seated in the stone throne at the back of the room, slouched and looking at the ceiling.  “Not much to keep kids occupied though.  Suppose I could let you smack the Heartless around as much as you like.  Or fight some of the dead guys, let them get some exercise.  You could play fetch with Cerberus?”

 

Sora didn’t say anything.  He had no ability to ask for things such as leaving the cavern, or how his friends were doing.  It went against the terms of the contract he’d made with Hades.  “Got nothing to say, kiddo?  No smart remarks?  No threats?  No declarations about escape attempts?”  Sora just shook his head, refusing to open his mouth in case he accidentally did exactly one of those things.  “Huh, usually takes a beating or two before folks like you get that sorta self control.”  The hot-headed god assumed a thinker pose while trying to figure something out, while Sora stood trying to remind himself that Aqua, Donald, Goofy, and the crew of the  _Black Pearl_  were safe as long as he stayed without making a fuss.

 

“Lord Hades,” a voice from the ceiling ground out.  It sounded to Sora like an announcement made over a school’s speaker system.  “Lady Persephone is here to see you.  Says it’s about dinner with Demeter.”

 

“Thank you, babe, tell her I’ll be right down.”  Hades stood up and glide-walked across the floor to a double-door at the far wall.  “Oy vey, going to have to deal with all that nagging mother-in-law tripe.  Get yelled at for not having any kids again.  Hey, at least you don’t have to worry about being old enough to get married, eh?”  He threw the comment over his shoulder at Sora, laughing a bit as he threw open the double doors.  However he stopped just before heading down, to slowly turn and look at Sora, like an idea suddenly bloomed in his head.  “Stay  _right there_ , me and the Missus will be right back with some things to talk to you about.”

 

Sora was distracted trying to imagine Hades’ wife, and only coming up with a more feminine-looking Hades, so only nodded.  The god gave him a grin and thumbs up, before slamming the double doors closed behind him.

 

\----

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Master Lulu's keyblade was the Crown of Guilt, for the curious, and yes she wielded it purely with telekinesis.  Master Lightning's keyblade was the Sleeping Lion.  They were killed before Xehanort took Ventus as his apprentice, and were the apprentices Eraqus had prior to Terra and Aqua.  Lightning became a Master before Lulu because Lulu consistently criticized Master Eraqus on his dogmatic ways, though they still parted on good terms.


	14. To bring death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sora makes a chain of deals with Hades and his queen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first chapter that's entirely one scene.  Not sure how to feel about that.

 

 

\----Chapter 14: To bring death.

 

Sora’s perception of what Mrs. Hades looked like was utterly shattered when she came in through the double doors with Hades at her side.  She was significantly taller than Hades, the tips of his flame-hair only coming up to her cheek bones.  And where Hades had obvious menace, she was bright and colorful.  Her skin was a vivid pink that shone with an inner light, her robes were white and not nearly as fancy as Hades’, but she had ornamentation of her own.  Her golden hair was held back by a headdress resembling a blooming flower, and she wore earrings resembling flower petals, each the size of Sora’s hands.

 

And she was far friendlier than Hades, breaking off from him with a grin once she saw Sora.  The goddess quickly pranced over to him, leaving glowing footprints behind her, and bent down to Sora’s height.  “Hello,” she said in a voice that reminded Sora of a singer from back home on the islands.  “I’m Persephone, Queen of of the Underworld, goddess of springtime and flowers.  How and who are you?”

 

“I’m Sora,” the keyblade wielder introduced himself, looking over to Hades to make sure he wasn’t somehow in trouble.  The lord of the dead seemed bored, leaning against the wall and gazing at the ceiling.  “And… I guess I’m okay?”

 

“He  _guesses_ , oy,” Hades said, offhand, flicking his wrist dismissively.

 

“Hades don’t be such a sourpuss,” Persephone chided.  She stood up and walked around Sora repeatedly, making the boy feel like he was being circled by desert vultures.  “Now, my hubby tells me you’re under contract to him long term, yeah?”

 

“Yeah.”  Sora caught Hades giving him a look after answering, with the god spinning his hand to indicate adding something.  “Um, I mean, yes… ma’am?”  The goddess patted him on the head like he was a good dog, making Sora realize just how much bigger her hands were than a normal person’s.

 

“Well, we have a proposal that’ll let you earn some nice things during your stay with us.  Would you like to hear it?”  Something didn’t seem right, not the sudden kindness from an associate of Hades, or how purposefully nonchalant Hades was being in the background.

 

“I’m not going to help you hurt people, if that’s what you mean.”  Again Persephone patted Sora on the head and bent down to meet him on eye level.

 

“I know my hubby hasn’t been the nicest guy in all the worlds.”  Her friendly expression didn’t change, but her eyes seemed to become hollow from Sora’s perspective.  “But he’s actually one of the nicest gods you’re ever going to meet.  At least he’s honest.”  That threw Sora for a loop, but he didn’t get a chance to comment before the goddess of flowers resumed speaking.  “Now, we could just order you to do things for us, you’re under contract, but if you do it willingly then you get some nice stuff, better living conditions, and maybe even reduced time on your sentence.”  While she talked, she made many small hand gestures to accompany her words, usually variations of pinching her fingers together then spreading them wide.  Sora found it reminded him of blooming flowers.  “You’re not going to be under contract forever, and when it’s over it’d be great if we could be friends, you know?”

 

“You can say whatever you want about the company I keep, kid,” Hades commented, glide-walking to the window.  “The more insulting it is, the more I’ll like you, actually.  But hey, I  _kept_  my end of the deal, even though I got a bone or two hundred and six to pick with bluebird.  This offer’s on the up and up, and better’n a yahoo like you oughta get.”  Sora frowned at Hades’ back, but didn’t let it stay on his face when he turned back to Persephone.

 

“Well… alright,” he said at length.  “What do you want me to do?”  Persephone squealed with delight and jumped to her full height, running over to Hades and emphatically prancing about him.

 

“Babe, please, c’mon, you’re making us look bad in front of the hostage,” Hades tried to get Persephone to cease the prancing by pressing his hand down on her shoulder.  Given she was taller, this proved difficult for him.  The lord of the underworld turned to Sora and casually glided toward him, tapping his fingertips together.  “Look, see, me and the Missus here have been trying to have kids for a long time.”  He paused to look distantly at nothing.  “A  _really_  long time.  And her mom’s been nagging and nagging about having kids for twice as long.”  Sora felt ill at ease as now both Hades and Persephone circled him until they each had a hand on his shoulders.  “So, we’d like you to play pretend for an afternoon or so, get her off our backs.”

 

“And in return,” Persephone added in, grinning wide.  “We’ll let you keep whatever presents she gives you, and take off…,” she paused, confused for a moment.  “Um, how many years did we agree on?”

 

“I’unno,” Hades shrugged, looking away and counting on his fingers.  “I think, two?  Two’s the usual starting figure.  How’s two sound?”  The two gods chatted over Sora’s head, literally, while he looked between them confused.

 

“So… you want me to pretend to be your  _kid_  to get your mom to leave you alone?”  The two gods looked down at Sora, Hades’ hair somehow failing to set Persephone’s floral headdress on fire, and nodded.  “That’s… really weird.”  All at once, Persephone got an inspired look on her face, looking back up to Hades and whispering to him.  Hades frowned, tapping his fingers on his lips while she talked.

 

“Mmmm, not so sure about that, babe,” Hades made no effort to whisper back.  “I kinda  _liked_  that part.  Petty vengeance, kind of a hobby of mine, ya know?”  Persephone kept whispering to him, and after rolling his eyes, Hades nodded.  “Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.  Alright!”  The two were back to looming over him with creepily happy looks.  “Final offer!  All the above items, with the added bonus….”

 

“My hubby makes a little change to your contract,” Persephone said while snapping her fingers.  A scroll of black paper held between two skull-decorated rollers appeared before them hanging in the air, and opened to reveal an incredibly long list of terms and conditions.  At the bottom was Sora’s signature, in vivid red.  Persephone reached out and pulled on some of the words to make them bigger.  The phrase ‘never see your friends again’ was the selected one, and she ran her index finger through it, leaving it struck through.  “See?  This way you can earn your way back to freedom, and don’t have to be struck blind to go back to your old life!  Everyone wins!”

 

“Wait,” Sora asked, looking up at Hades.  “You were going to make me  _blind_?”  The smiles on the gods  became slightly brittle, and Sora could see the faint traces of orange in Hades’ hair to let him know the god was getting steamed.  But, Sora looked back to the contract, and considered his options.

 

It had been one of the meanest parts of the contract Hades had brought up after he signed, before being teleported and knocked out.  At the time, he thought he’d find a way out of the deal, and here it had already presented itself.  “So, kid,” Hades started, with a voice like he was trying to sell something.  “Whaddya say?  Major contract revision for helping us get our beloved smother to back off?  So you can maybe get your friends back?  Sound good?”

 

“This is a limited time offer,” Persephone cut in.  The two divinities held up fingers to mark a count of three, like auctioneers.

 

“Going once.”

 

“Twice!”

 

“Okay,” Sora shouted.  He pulled free and turned to look at them without needing to crane his neck.  “I’ll do it.  Just keep your word and let me see my friends again.”  The needle-toothed Hades and seemingly normal Persephone grinned at each other, did a little dance and extended their hands to shake.  It was a bit odd for Sora, shaking with both hands, but once it was done he felt… lighter, like the air in the Underworld wasn’t pushing down on him quite as hard.

 

“Pleasure doing business with ya, ya yutz,” Hades quickly ran his hand through his fiery hair after shaking with Sora.  “We’ll go over brass tax later.  Babe,” Hades addressed Persephone with a tired look.  “I got a meeting with a minion I gotta go deal with.  Games business, you know how it is.  Can you watch this punk for a bit?  Maybe an hour or two?”  Persephone nodded and Hades poofed from the room.

 

Once he was gone, it was like Persephone became an entirely different person.  All the giddiness and wide smiles vanished, and instead she sort of looked like Aqua when annoyed.  “Sorry for that, and for this whole contract business,” she said in a radically different tone than before.  “This whole situation’s a mess.”  She crossed one arm across her chest and summoned a wide-brimmed glass filled with bubbling blue liquid in the other.

 

“I’m kinda lost… why are you acting so different?”  Sora rubbed the back of his head and tried to piece together the eclectic happenings that had transpired.  It was making his head hurt.

 

“Hades got a taste of his own medicine.”  The queen of the underworld walked to the throne and all but collapsed into it, somehow not spilling a drop of her drink.  “Made a deal with some witch from another world, and got turned into a minion.  That’s why he’s bossing the Heartless around, and attacked your ship.  If he wasn’t in such a bad way I would be finding this whole thing hilarious, honestly.”  The situation started to clear up immediately for Sora, but bits and pieces still didn’t fit.  “I act like a ditz around him because  _she_  can peak in on him at any time, or call him up and make him answer her questions.  Don’t want her seeing me as a threat until it’s too late.”

 

“Does that mean you’ll let me out of the contract?”  Persephone giggled a bit into her drink, before finishing it off and refilling the glass from nothing.

 

“Hey, if I could and you could go sailing off and kill Maleficent for me, I’d give ya a shot.  Would mean holding one of your friends down here as collateral, though.”  She sighed, looking at Sora’s frown.  “Hey, I’d treat ‘em nice.  You play your cards right kid, and you’ll be staying in my slice of the underworld, the Elysian Fields.”  There was silence between them for a moment, while Sora pondered this and while Persephone drank.

 

“If Hades wants to be free of the contract he’s in, I’ll help him.  As long as I get to find my friends when I’m done.” Sora tried to assume his serious and keyblade-wielder-y pose, similar to Aqua’s, which earned a giggle from Persephone.  She raised her glass to toast him.

 

“A sentiment I can respect.  Hero-type that aren’t all goody-goody for once, that want actual payment for heroics… I don’t think I’ve seen that in a while actually.”  She dismissed the glass, after drinking it to emptiness and stood from the throne.  “Listen.... I forgot your name, oops.”  Sora helpfully provided it, getting what he hoped was a genuine smile from the goddess.  “Sora, thank you.  I got a plan that’ll get you out of this contract with Hades, let you go back on your adventure, find your friends, whatever.”  Again, she returned to the pinching fingers and spreading them apart gesture, like blooming flowers.  “You just gotta play along, be your little keyblade-wielder self, and I’ll set up the opportunities, yeah?”

 

“So long as I don’t hurt anyone, and you keep your word.”  Sora tried to be serious, but he wanted to smile.  It looked like things were getting better already!

 

“Excellent.  Now, while Hades is away we need to get you ready for dinner with the gods of Olympus.”  Overwhelming dread filled Sora as he looked up at the wicked smile of Persephone, getting closer rapidly due to her long gait.  “And that means… makeover!”

 

The teenager realized too late the horror that was about to befall him, and could not run away quick enough before being carted away by the spring goddess.

\----

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Persephone rules over the Elysian Fields while she is in the underworld, because no one on Olympus trusts Hades to do it.  They actually do end up having some children later, but that won't happen until well after this story takes place.  Her design here is based off her appearance in the movie, if you're curious.


	15. Death or Glory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How Aqua Learned to Stop Worrying and Beat up Heartless.

 

\----Chapter 15: Death or Glory.

 

Olympus Coliseum’s world hadn’t changed since Aqua had last been by.  The town was still built all of stone, with buildings lined in fluted pillars, with most of the color on the rooftops, and gleaming bronze statues decorating important buildings.  Some of the townsfolk recognized her, with mixed reactions.  She had landed ahead of the  _Black Pearl_  to make sure the Heartless weren’t attacking and that the landing zone set aside for them was secure.

 

Landing zone was a generous term from Aqua’s perspective.  The  _Pearl_  was cleared to use an abandoned quarry for their landing, where down below a monstrous, multi-headed skeleton continued to decay.  Absent a proper dock, the ship pulled up close to the grass-bearing ground at the top of the quarry and put down a gangplank to unload their wares.  Aqua heard from the pirate crew that they hoped to use the magic talents she’d taught them to win prizes at the games, beyond town.  It was also the first time she heard the name of the town itself: Thebes.

 

“Master Aqua,” Captain Barbossaa said once his men had unloaded their crates and started off toward the town.  “It be lookin’ like we will be at this port for a goodly bit o’ time.  The preliminaries for the games be startin’ soon, and me men be eager to participate.  Have ye any interest in competin’?”  She stopped to consider, while looking the Captain over, eyes glazed.

 

“To what end would I compete, Captain?”  She had been the champion of the games once.  But that was ten years ago.  She’d defeated the god of the underworld and an enormous ice construct to do it, all in pursuit of her friends.  Hades’ words from that day, about Terra and the darkness within him were so much more hurtful in hindsight.

 

Because she knew now, that they were true.

 

“Th’ favor of the gods be the chief concern o’ my men.”  He turned to shout at a pair of men, Pintel and Ragetti about slacking off when there was still work to do.  “It be what constitutes the bulk of my men’s wares.  Offerin’s to their temples in the hopes o’ favor.”  Aqua looked at the men, feverishly taking their crates to the city, while Barbossa spat in disgust.

 

“You don’t hope to earn their favor as well, Captain?”  Barbossa gently shook his head, and looked over at his ship lovingly.

 

“Nay, Master Aqua, I do not aim to buy the god’s favor.  I offer tribute to th’ gods, aye, but as a matter o’ courtesy.  Their favor, I aim to win in the games.  With the strength o’ me back, sharpness o’ me steel, and the cunning of me cold, black heart.”  He blew a kiss to the ship, though one of the crewmen still on board thought it had been to him.  “No, not you ye great, cancerous lump!  Get back to work!”

 

“I don’t need the favor of the gods myself,” Aqua admitted, but her eyes drifted to Mickey’s friends, Donald and Goofy, helping out where they could.  “But if they have any insight to where my missing friends are, I could compete for a chance to ask them.”

 

\--

 

Aqua, Donald, and Goofy made their way through Thebes until they reached the Coliseum.  An enormous building comprising multiple arenas all connected to a central plaza.  The entrance Aqua had led them to was explicitly for competitors, which Aqua remembered almost fondly.  The courtyard with the enormous statues of two warriors crossing their swords in an arc, the empty tournament postings on the walls flanking the initial entrance, and the vestibule where competitors entered into the games.  Hadn’t changed a bit.

 

She let the King’s men look on in wonder at the Coliseum before going into the vestibule.  A cramped room, with two recessed areas on either wall filled with trophies.  Aqua remembered that most of the awards displayed in the room belonged to the victors of past games that had died shortly after winning.  In the corner was a strange, short, portly man with the upper body and head of a man, but the legs, tail, and horns of a goat, placing letters into slots for a sign adjacent to the arena entrance.  Aqua sighed to herself, remembering the less than chivalrous Philoctetes before she approached the man and tapped on his shoulder.

 

“Ey, whatcha doin’ touchin’ me without sayin’-,” the wise-guy sounding man grumbled, spinning on his hooves to see who had been so presumptuous. His expression went bug-eyed when he saw Aqua, then broke into a wide grin.  “Sweetheart!  Good to see ya!  Ya ain’t aged a day.”

 

“Same to you, Phil,” Aqua responded with a faint smile.  “However I spent the last ten years in a world without time to age me, what’s your excuse?”  Phil licked his hand and adjusted his balding hair as if it were gel.

 

“Exceptionally good breedin’.  An’ who are those greenhorns ya got with ya?”

 

Donald huffed, and stamped one webbed foot while crossing his arms.  “We aren’t greenhorns,” he grumbled.

 

“Yeah, we’ve been fightin’ for years,” Goofy added, more amicable both in tone and expression.  Phil rolled his eyes and planted his hands on his hips.

 

“Yeah, I can see that,” the satyr admitted.  “You got the looks of longtime  _soldiers_ , not  _heroes_.  So you hangin’ out with a bonafide hero like Sugarcakes here is a bit odd, capiche?”  Aqua arched her eyebrow, befuddled by the statement.  “What, what’s with the face?”

 

“Phil, I’m far from being a hero,” Aqua started, only to be interrupted by Phil loudly imitating a wrong-answer buzzer.

 

“Uh-uh, Sweetcheeks.  You don’t get to decide if you’re a hero, the Muses do.  Proclaimers of Heroes and all that.”  The satyr put his hands back on his hips but smiled good-naturedly this time.  “And a bit after you left, they ‘Proclaimed’ you’d made hero.  You, and two other guys I can’t quite remember.”  Aqua’s expression became downcast as she remembered what had happened after leaving the Coliseum.  Nothing struck her as particularly heroic.

 

“I… guess I have to accept it.  Even if I don’t know why they’d proclaim me anything but a failure.”  Phil looked taken aback by the sudden note of bitterness in Aqua’s voice, but didn’t get long to think about it.  “I’m here to enter the preliminaries with these two,  are there spots left?”

 

“Well… yeah, I can get you a spot.  No problem.”  The satyr looked over to the King’s men with a questioning look.  Aqua didn’t follow it to see their reaction, but it didn’t satisfy Phil one bit by his reaction.  “The first few matches will start in a bit.  Know you don’t like to wait, so I’ll try and get ya placed early.”  Phil hopped off his platform to start waddling toward the arena.  “Herc’s going to be by later, ya should chat him up, see how he’s grown in ten years.”

 

When she’d last seen Hercules, he was a scrawny kid with no sense of balance in a fight, but a good heart.  She found herself hoping that the years had been kind to him, moreso than they had the rest of the worlds.  The boy had been so  _earnest_  in his desire to be a hero.

 

“I think I will.  Zack too, if he’s still around.”  Phil froze mid-step, before his entire body seemed to sag, and he continued onward into the arena.  Aqua didn’t need to be told that something had happened to Zack, and started looking at the names on the trophies.

 

“Um, Master Aqua.”  She didn’t give Goofy more than a glance when he spoke up, before going back to name searching.  “Ya sure you want to compete with us?”

 

“Yes.”  Bitterness would become anger if she left it untreated.  Anger would lead to darkness growing in her heart.  And she refused to let the darkness take her now that she had escaped its world.  “We need to work together, to trust each other.  The best way to do that is to fight together, so we know what we’re all capable of.  And if we can earn the favor of a god, perhaps they’ll tell us where our friends are.”  She wanted to know about Sora and Terra more than Mickey, she was sad to admit to herself.  But Mickey needed to be found just as much as they did.

 

Surprisingly, Aqua didn’t find Zack’s name on one of the post-mortem trophies.  But that didn’t put her mind at ease on the subject at all.

 

\--

 

The rounds went by quick, almost alarmingly so.  Most of the Heartless who had teams in the tournament were vanquished in one hit from Master’s Defender, while Goofy, Donald, and Aqua’s magic could clear up the Heartless that were able to dodge out of the way of physical hits.

 

Goofy had a technique for throwing his shield similarly to how Aqua threw her keyblade in a strike raid, which let him hit the nimble Blue Rhapsody and Red Nocturne Heartless.  They were colorful creatures, with black spheres as their heads, fringed cones of blue and red respectively, and tall yellow hats, with their only limbs being vestigial feet.  They bounced around, moved erratically through the air, and attacked with magic.

 

It was a bit more challenging when men from the  _Black Pearl_  were their opponents, because Aqua had to hold back.  The Heartless were monsters, needing to be slain for the good of all worlds, and if the situation were not so dire the same would be true of the pirates.  But the  _Pearl_  was doing good work, and as Barbossa had said, they didn’t want the worlds coming to an end either.

 

But once the Heartless were beaten back, and the worlds restored, Aqua would find Captain Barbossa and his crew, and hit them harder than any storm the  _Pearl_  had ever seen.

 

Perhaps that was why, despite holding back, Donald, Goofy, and Aqua still delivered a thorough thrashing to the pirates.  The crowd thoroughly enjoyed it, from the shouts and confetti flying from the stands on either side of the arena as the trio left.

 

Once outside the ring, Aqua turned to watch the competitors from the next bracket move in to take their places.  Barbossa was among them, but so was another interesting person.  A young man, possibly Aqua’s age, with blond spiked hair, blue eyes and a fashion sense that screamed inner turmoil.  She saw a bat-like wing move a bit under his long cloak, and one of his hands was covered in a gauntlet resembling a skeletal hand.  He also wielded a ridiculously large sword, easily having to weigh close to fifty kilos, and covered in bandages.

 

Something about him was eerily familiar.

 

\--

 

The fights in the second round of the preliminaries and the final match came and went.  The arena was in ruins, having been laid to waste by a monster that interrupted the matches.  Cerberus, a legendary three-headed dog had interrupted Barbossa’s match with the blond-haired man by stepping on the poor guy.  Phil had immediately given the order to evacuate, with Aqua leaping at the dog to occupy its attention while the stands cleared out.

 

Donald and Goofy got the injured combatant out, while Barbossa showed impressive agility by dancing around the dog’s paws, stabbing it in both the legs and gut.  Aqua made use of a light manipulation technique, creating chains that held the three mouths of the beast closed.  All it had left to fight with was its bulk, and that was rendered moot by a third warrior joining the fray.

 

He was muscled, dressed in leather armor with a blue cape, with red hair and an emblem of the local godking Zeus on his belt.  A short sword hung at his side, but went unused as the man physically punched the monstrous dog with enough force to send it flying into the back wall of the arena and shatter the structure.  Between the three of them, Cerberus was defeated and left knocked out in the arena.  Once defeated, Phil, Donald and Goofy returned, the King's men letting them know the spectators had gotten out safely.  Phil examined the arena, to see how it fared in the battle.

 

“... Alright,” Phil said, more than a little distraught by the damage to the arena once he saw it.  “Going to have to postpone the Phil Cup, it looks like.”  The portly satyr turned to face the three who had defeated the dog, putting his hands on his hips.  “You three did good, keeping Cerberus occupied so the folks could get out.”

 

“What be the official ruling in regards to me match, good sir?”  Barbossa was quick to remind where his motives lay, Aqua found with a small frown.  “Iffin’ that great mutt hadn’ta interfered, I daresay I would have defeated the attention-seeker, aye?”

 

Phil nodded, not looking too pleased with it.  “Yeah.  I’ll consult Nike about it, but I think she’ll side with you on the issue.  Since the arena can’t be used, the winners from each bracket will be given automatic places in the Phil Cup when it’s announced.”  The third member of the trio became Phil’s focus.  “What about you, Herc?  Want to win the tournament honoring yours truly?”

 

Herc?  Aqua blinked, looking over the enormous man beside her.  He had his arms crossed, and a good natured look on his face.  It was difficult to see, but after a moment she could tell who the muscled man was.  “Hercules?”  At Aqua’s question, the guy sighed, crouched down and pouted at Phil.

 

“Way to go, Phil, I was trying to see how long it took her to recognize me naturally.”  He even  _sounded_  similar.  Aqua quickly walked in front of him as he stood, giving him a once over with a huge grin on her face.  “Yeah, it’s me, Aqua.  Good to see you again.”

 

“Same to you.  Wow, you really put in work since I’ve been gone.  Your arms are bigger than my head!”  Phil forced Hercules to back away with some harsh shoves, commenting to Hercules that he already had a ‘lady friend’ and didn’t need to be giving other girls the wrong idea.  Aqua’s face went beat red and she blustered to the satyr about how Hercules was her  _friend_  and that she was happy to see him, but not in that way.  Hercules seemed to enjoy the arguing between her and Phil, while Barbossa shook his head and left the ruined arena.

 

“So, you made hero!”  Hercules and Aqua talked in the vestibule while Donald kept laying Cure magic on the blond man from Barbossa’s fight, and Phil wandered off to the temples.  “And Terra and Ven too.  Was hoping you would be up for telling me how it happened.”

 

Aqua sighed, sitting on a stone block that had a note from Phil to Hercules about it needing to be moved.  “I wish I could tell you.  I’m not sure any of us deserved to be called heroes after all that happened.  Certainly not me.”  Hercules patted her on the shoulder with surprising gentleness, and an understanding expression.

 

“Hey, I’ve been there too.  When I made hero, I didn’t know what had happened at first either.  I was just so…  _angry_.”  He crossed his arms and looked away.  “It wasn’t until I was being spirited away to Mount Olympus that it’d sunk in.  Maybe you just need something to tell you what happened to qualify you?”  He looked at Aqua with hopeful eyes, the same eyes he’d had ten years ago when talking about seeing her and Zack in the games  “Have you talked to Terra or Ven?  Since all three of you got named Hero at the same time, I’d figured it was something related.”

 

“No.  I’ve been looking for Terra for a while, actually.”  It felt like so long that she’d been looking for Terra, Aqua was exhausted from it.  Like she’d run too far, chasing after someone just barely faster than she.  “Ven’s… sick, and I need Terra’s help to make him well again.”  That gave Hercules an idea, she could tell from the way his eyes lit up and expression visibly, literally, brightened.  For a moment, Hercules exuded golden light that turned his hair blond and skin deeply tanned.

 

“I know!  I can ask my father if there’s anything we can do to help.  Cousin Apollo is the god of prophecy, he might be able to tell you when and where you’ll find Terra, or, or, Artemis could tell you how to track him, or-”  Aqua held up a hand and stood, bewildered by the sudden surge of light from Hercules and his words.

 

“Wait… your cousin is a god?”

 

“Yeah!  Technically, I would be one too, but I’m staying mortal until Meg dies of old age.  Then she can live with me up on Mount Olympus.”  His eyes bugged out of his skull with another new realization.  “Oh man, Meg!  I left her with the toga tailor!  She doesn’t have any money to pay the bill!  I’ll be right back, Aqua, then I’ll take you up to Mount Olympus to talk with my father, okay?  Okay!”  Hercules’ face went through panic, gripping at his hair, before hastily running out of the vestibule, leaving Aqua, Donald, Goofy, and the blond man alone to stand in awkward silence.

 

“Well, in other news,” Donald announced, breaking the silence.  “This guy’s spine is working again.”

 

\----

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nike is the Greek Goddess of Victory, so you know.


	16. Drink of the gods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sora and Persephone go to the Elysian Fields.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our first world-specific perspective!

 

\----Chapter 16:  Drink of the gods.

 

Sora got to see a fair bit of the underworld while Persephone carried him away.  She would point out things to him, and he would see them as they passed.  The river Lethe that caused mortals, gods, and titans to forget - the water was used to keep the peace among the gods, she said, so that they would forget grudges.  The green river of souls he’d almost been dropped into was called the Styx, and defined the borders of the underworld.  The souls of the dead would float upon it, then pass into other rivers until they were where they’d stay forever.  Apparently there were five rivers in the underworld, but the journey Persephone was taking him on would only let him see the Styx, Lethe, and Acheron.

 

She let Sora down when they arrived at a dock.  The green water of the Styx met a river of white water, with the souls of the dead desperately trying to climb  _over_  the frothing divide, but skeletal figures in ragged robes with two-point spears drove them back and allowed a select few to pass.  From the waters rose a narrow boat, somehow empty of the pale riverwater, angular in shape and made of all black wood.

 

“So, why can’t all those people come wherever this river goes,” Sora asked while he and Persephone stepped into the boat.  Once they sat down, the skiff departed the dock and glided downriver with the current.

 

“When Zeus ran the Elysian Fields,” Persephone sighed, reaching down to run her hand along the surface of the river.  “Only mortals related to the gods, or titans that had sided with the gods in the war were permitted to live in the Fields, and swim in the healing waters of the river Acheron.  Even though I’m queen here now, he still gets to overrule any decision I make.”  Sora frowned and looked over the side of the boat.  Where Persephone touched the water, flower petals appeared, running behind the skiff as it went.  The few people floating in the river grasped at them like lifelines.  “Allowing virtuous mortals entry was as far as I could get.”  The spring goddess’ tone became sardonic even while her face remained in a pleasant smile.  “Zeus doesn’t much like me or my husband.  But he likes kids, so he might treat  _you_  decent.”

 

“Who’s Zeus?”  Sora looked back up in time to see Persephone utterly flabbergasted by his question.

 

“Right.”  She rubbed her fingers on her temples in small circles while closing her eyes.  “You’re not from here.  Wouldn’t know the gods.  So need to do a history lesson on top of a makeover.”

 

\---

 

The queen of the underworld was a rare sort of Greek goddess on multiple counts.  She was one of a select few who had  _chosen_  her husband, and one of only that had a happy marriage.  Perhaps that was why her mother couldn’t leave Persephone and Hades alone, she didn’t see that they were  _happy_  together.  Those rumors that she, the goddess of spring, had been kidnapped by the god of the dead still lingered despite her…  _stern_  disapproval.

 

Persephone was also rare among the gods in that she  _liked_  mortals.  Even benevolent gods such as Hera and Aphrodite mostly tolerated them, provided offerings were on time.  And that would ultimately be why Persephone had told only her husband about how mortals had come to be.  It was their secret that she had sculpted the first humans out of clay and given them life; and it was that secret that kept Hades from being willing to marry her for so long - she was responsible for his domain being filled with the dead.  He was fine with the living, in fact at times she’d say he liked them too.  And she wondered if Hades had been allowed to rule the Elysian Fields from the start, the one area of the underworld close to Olympian standards of luxury, would he have been so bitter and envious?  Would he have come to despise the dead?

 

It was a long trip down the healing waters of the Acheron to the Elysian Fields, so she told Sora the story of the war with the titans, and the ascension of the gods.  And she told him Hades’ story, how the boy’s pretend ‘father’ had tried to overthrow the established order due to jealousy and anger.  Fortunately, it incited her guest’s natural curiosity.  “Why couldn’t Hades stay with the other gods,” he asked.

 

One of the dead plucked a flower from the surface of the Acheron while Persephone looked.  An artist, who had labored long and hard to create a perfect piece, but died with it unfinished.  “Because of just how much work is involved in managing the dead,” she replied, hiding her expression from the mortal boy.  “People are dying  _all the time_.  Not just here, but across all the worlds.  Hades keeps a schedule of every moment, of every hour, of every day, of every  _year_  because of how much work he has to do.”

 

When Hades had met with her, on the shores of the Styx before proposing the plan, she’d recognized the ‘behind schedule’ slowness in his demeanor.  His minions had confirmed to her that the  _witch_  from that fairytale world had put him four hours behind schedule.  She sharply inhaled, thinking about it.  The time spent on Sora would have to be shuffled around somewhere, and she had a feeling it would be primarily in the time Hades had planned to spend with her.

 

So much for Elysian Tennis, she thought.  “So,” Sora said, his face furtive when Persephone glanced at him.  “He’s got… the most work to do.”

 

“And before our marriage, he did it largely alone.  His minions could handle only certain tasks, such as shepherding the dead through the Styx.  Every time Hades tried to make something for himself to unwind with, Zeus shut him down.”  The fog bank that rose from the waterfalls around the Elysian Fields approached quickly now.  Persephone lifted her hand from the Acheron’s surface to direct the fog bank to part around the skiff, forming a fog tunnel.

 

“Why would he do that?  Does he want the other gods to do their jobs above everything else?”  His mortal perception only let him know about the fog bank as they were finally passing through, to emerge on an island surrounded on all sides by steep waterfalls.  “Whoa.”  Sora was perhaps the first living mortal to see the Elysian Fields, Persephone thought bitterly.  The island was covered in grasslands, small thickets of white poplar and fruiting trees, and lakes to provide water for the cities where the honored dead would live.  The skiff had come out in the lake feeding Persephone’s palace, at the center.

 

“Before you ask,” Persephone said, as the lake reeds rose up and wove together to form a dock as she exited the boat, “no.  That’s not the real sky.”  Sora spent a moment or two looking up at the seemingly real blue sky, clouds, and sun.  But in time, he would notice the fact that the clouds didn’t move, the sun didn’t hurt to look at, and the sky resembled the roof of a cavern.  “It’s painted.”  There was no time to enjoy a mortal ooh-ing and aah-ing at the wonders of Elysium, so she hurried up the stairs to the roofless collection of pillars and walls that was the palace for her stay in the underworld, with the mortal guided to follow her by the plantlife literally pushing him forward at times.

 

“Is that… made entirely out of trees?”  Persephone stopped to think about the question before she remembered.  It was a uniquely mortal thing to  _question_  things, which often earned the ire of the other gods.

 

“White poplar trees, yes.  All the buildings in the Elysian Fields are made of them.”  The trees began to fruit at her presence, and if she were not filled with thoughts of how to make her plan work, she might have taken the time to stop and admire them.  “Come now, there is much to do before meeting with Demeter, and possibly the rest of the gods.”

 

“What?”  Sora raced to keep pace with the spring goddess, having to actually run to keep up with her walk.  “The rest of the gods too?”

 

“They have this terrible habit of getting involved in everyone’s business.”  Which would be only worsened if Bacchus was allowed to come.  Her brother, the god of celebration, would incite even greater feasting than the dinner would normally provide.  She walked, and Sora ran, through the roofless halls of the palace, passing great halls, libraries, and gardens until Persephone turned, stopping Sora before he ran into her hip, and went inside.  The poplar pillars, with their branches forming the walls, were covered in rolls of fabric and string, with a loom at the far end, and many spinning wheels worked by poplar dryads, which Sora couldn’t see.  “Here is where we’ll start the makeover, with some new clothes.”

 

\--

 

The boy examined the outfit made for him by Persephone’s loom and the dryad seamstresses.  At the goddess’ insistence, they kept his normal outfit in mind.  A chiton of red fabric, with golden crowns at the edges, and fastened at the left shoulder with a gold pin embossed with the same design, leather boots since the boy didn’t care for sandals, and the crown necklace from his original gaudy outfit but colored yellow-gold.  With all the crowns, she idly thought him to be meant for royalty.

 

“You know, when you said ‘makeover’,” Sora started, calling his keyblade and moving through some stances in the outfit, and looking at himself in the wall-sized mirror called into being by the goddess’ will.  “I kinda expected something more drastic.”

 

“We haven’t gotten to that stage yet,” Persephone let him know with a faint smile.  “We’ll be stopping by the lab for that part.”  Sora searched her reflection’s expression, trying to find reason behind her words, perhaps.  “Right now, you look like a mortal wearing some fancy clothes.  For the deception to work, I need to make you look like at least a demigod.”  She knew he would follow, either by being pushed by the invisible dryads, or by his curiosity, so Persephone left the weaving room. 

 

The laboratory was an addition she had made onto the brewery left over from Zeus’ time, one wall lined with enormous casks of nectar, and the other with glass equipment all adorned with flowers.  “What’s in these?”  Sora was more curious about the chemicals than the enormous casks, to Persephone’s surprise.  He poked at some of the vessels that held strangely colored chemicals, small rocks, or powders.

 

“That one you are poking is ash of the first flame made by mankind.  A pinch of that is marvelous for any brew related to achievement.”  At her will, a chair and table manifested in the middle of the room.  “Sit, watch, learn.”  The boy did so, only barely on the edge of the seat while he watched her work.

 

The first thing she did was take an empty vessel and a spigot, and go to a cask of nectar.  The jar was almost bigger than Sora’s head, and once full of the dark pink liquid, Persephone brought it to the equipment and poured it into a round-bottom flask with four necks.  “A base of nectar, to start.”  Tubes and pipes were connected to the four necks of the flask, and then connected to funnels, distillers, and condensers.  “Some of this….”  Seemingly normal dirt fell into the nectar, then vanished while darkening the drink of the gods.

 

“And that….” She uncorked an empty vessel, causing a cold wind to blow in the room before she affixed a tube to the neck.  The nectar began to froth in the vessel, stirred by the invisible substance.  “I think… this.”  Persephone seized an hourglass and shrunk it down so that she could drop it into the funnel, before it dropped into the nectar, dissolving and turning the liquid orange.  The mortal boy watched her every move, glancing away only to see the effect on the nectar.  A bit of blue flame was carefully applied to the outside of the flask, turning the nectar yellow from the heat, before it was mixed into a paler orange.  “Something for growth….”  A branch from the wall stretched out, and grew a pomegranate for her, which she took and tore open.  Three of the seeds she dropped into the funnel, dying the concoction a deep red when they fell in.

 

“It’s missing something,” she said after a few minutes of just watching the brew mix.  It was almost done, she could see the parts swirling around, but they weren’t mixing together quite right.  “Any ideas?”

 

Sora looked over the numerous containers of substances, squinting at some, before pointing at a flask filled with green smoke.  “That one,” he said offhand.  “I… don’t know what it is, though.”  The spring goddess picked up the flask and considered it.  Not often an ingredient in  _her_  brews.

 

“Well, let’s see how it works with the rest.”  She plugged the flask into the condenser, and watched it go.  Faint, disembodied laughter passed through the glassware as the smoke moved, before going down into the multi-necked flask and turning the nectar the same shade of brown as Sora’s hair.  It wasn’t… appealing to look at, but it was complete, to the goddess’ eyes.  “Well, there ya go.”  She unhooked the continuous ingredients, then the flask and emptied some out into a martini glass she conjured, before passing it to Sora.  “Hmm.  Smells nice.”

 

“Smells like hot chocolate,” the mortal boy said before taking a sip.  “Tastes like it too!”  While he drank, the mixed drink of the gods began to work its magic upon him.  Even the initial sip had caused him to start glowing.  Persephone crossed her arms and watched her brew change Sora as he drank.

 

“This could be a problem,” she admitted when the change was done.  With golden skin, and bright red hair, the pseudo-divine Sora looked far closer to being the child of  _Hercules_  or Zeus than Persephone or Hades.

 

\----

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, in most Greek myths, Prometheus created humanity, but in the Disney version all he did was give them fire.  So I went with the version of the myth where Persephone did it instead.
> 
> Also, ingredients of the brew: Soil from the grove of the golden apples, the Eastern Wind, time, a touch of death, three pomegranate seeds, and fun.  Orange, red, and yellow color pallet.  Five internet cookies to the person who can guess what pseudo-god that makes Sora.


	17. Olympus Monster

 

  
\----Chapter 17: Olympus Monster.  
  
“Okay, okay, okay, _okay_ , so it turns out that Nike isn’t convinced you won the fight because apparently _you_ don’t think you won.”  
  
Aqua watched Phil and Captain Barbossa talking to each other about the results of the Captain’s match from the opposite end of the entrance hall to the Coliseum. A bit of wind magic was all it took to snag their words and carry them to her ears for easy snooping. Her face was a grimace as she eavesdropped, for while watching Barbossa interact with his crew that had also participated and lost, she came to know him better.  
  
He had a certain air of persuasion, but it was a veil hiding his sadistic and cruel nature but a little. It reminded Aqua of Master Xehanort, not in a flattering way. And she was helping him to do so; the situation disgusted her, but for the duration of their voyage all that could be done was minimizing the harm he would cause once out of her sight. Aqua didn’t get to catch the end of Barbossa and Phil’s discussion as Hercules appeared in the entranceway and waved her over.  
  
With Goofy and Donald following behind her, she went out to meet him on the road to Thebes. Hercules wasn’t alone, there was a young woman, perhaps a bit older than Aqua, in a dark pink dress of the local fashion, and voluminous dark brown hair was done up in an elaborate style. Aqua was struck by the Greek woman’s expression of cool disinterest--it strongly reminded her of Master Lulu and became stronger when the woman spoke.  
  
“So you’re the girl Wonderboy was talking about.” Her voice was deeper than Aqua’s and coy. “Name’s Megara, friends call me Meg. Wonderboy didn’t give me _your_ names,” she directed the last of her statement to Donald and Goofy.  
  
While the King’s men introduced themselves, Aqua looked to Hercules and Meg. “I take it you two are…?”  
  
“Married, yeah,” Hercules said through a goofy grin and rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s a fairly recent thing.”  
  
She took a moment to look at them, or rather the way Hercules looked at Meg since the other woman was still talking to Donald and Goofy. Meg was questioning their fashion - specifically why Donald didn’t even wear shoes. He looked at Meg like she was the most gorgeous thing he’d ever seen, while Meg’s ever-present faint smile widened when she glanced at Hercules.  
  
“Congratulations.” Aqua meant it and immediately went to thinking about a late wedding present she could make for them when she had time. Perhaps some way of long-distance communication. But there was business to see to first, so Aqua had to force her face into a more neutral expression. “I don’t mean to be a downer, but you said we were going to be heading up to Mount Olympus…?”  
  
That snapped Hercules from fawning over his wife, back to the situation at hand. “Oh right! We just need to wait for Hermes to show up so he can vet you.”  
  
“What’s that supposed to mean,” the Duck magician cut in with a weak glare.  
  
“Hmm? Oh!” The hero quickly realized what he’d said and waved his hands quickly. “Not like that kind of vet. The kind where he makes sure it’s alright for you to go up. Me vouching for you won’t be good enough if one of the gods has a grudge.”  
  
Aqua realized that she knew little to nothing about the local gods, yet she was going to them for help. This had the feeling of a bad idea to her, but it was better than moving about in the dark.  
  
“Don’t _worry_ babes,” a stranger’s voice said from above. Aqua looked up to see a blue-skinned man in winged sandals, a perhaps too small white robe, golden-winged cap, and tiny round sunglasses, waving a winged staff in his hands flippantly. “You’re new in town, how could you have angered any of the hip cats up on Olympus yet?”  
  
\---  
  
Sora sat alone in a grand hall of Persephone’s palace and watched the poplar trees change right in front of him. Flowers that had bloomed from Persephone passing by transitioned to fruit when she left and he stayed. From the distant shouting and brief bits of fire he could see over the rooftops, he guessed Hades had arrived and they were talking about something important.  
  
The Queen of the Dead had asked him to stay in the room and drink the rest of the potion she’d brewed. Every time he finished the martini glass it would fill back up, and despite drinking several refills worth Sora never felt full. His skin didn’t glow any brighter, though as he drank more it started to turn from orange to a bronze color.  
  
Just as he was starting to get sick of the hot chocolate tasting potion, it finally ran out. The martini glass vanished into blue smoke while Sora got up to head towards the shouting from across the palace.  
  
“Huh,” Sora said as he passed more poplar tree walls, and saw that the leaves changed color from verdant green to the colors of autumn - gold, brown, red, and orange - as he approached. “Maybe it’s me that’s doing that?”  
  
When he found Persephone, he confirmed that Hades was with her, the two walking in circles around each other in a throne room. The room and the throne were made of the roots of a glowing white poplar tree that had grown to resemble a stained glass window in the wall. Though the two gods were too preoccupied with each other to notice Sora enter the throne room at first, the trees all changed color according to his presence.  
  
“... There was going to be some element of surprise, hot stuff,” Persephone started, holding her hands up, and drawing her head closer to her shoulders in the presence of Hades whose hair was unusually red. “But we can work with this, it’s only for an afternoon and then we’ll have Demeter off our backs for good.”  
  
“You know, _know_ that Demeter is going to bring something like that up!” Hades dashed away from the springtime goddess, floating on the smoke that formed around his feet. “She’ll say something like--like that you’ve been staying the night with someone else! She’ll use that to try and break us up--and oh my _me_ if Zeus catches wind of this he’ll never let it go.” The red drained from the Lord of the Underworld and he covered his eyes with a hand. “And speaking of letting go--I thought I got you to let go of that snooping habit, kiddo.” A projection of smoke rose up and launched itself across the throne room toward Sora.  
  
“Eep!” Sora only had time to turn before he was snatched up by the smoke and drawn into the throne room.  
  
“See? Zeus was never that bronze.” Persephone broke the smoke binding Sora to Hades and held him like a doll once he got close. “The only other god with this complexion is Circe, and she’s _not my type_. So we can maybe avoid that drama.”  
  
Hades was visibly unconvinced once he turned back and took his hand off his face. “Sweetie, I don’t know how to tell you this but the big twelve know a lot of gods who have that shade of bronze.” Suddenly, he exploded in a red fire that arched up into the sky and lanced out along his arms while he verbally exploded. “Like the _Egyptian Gods_!” He calmed down all of a sudden and started to pace. “Oh I know exactly what she’ll say--she’ll start on about how handsome Ra is, and how nicer an Underworld that Set guy has. Well, newsflash Demeter--Set doesn’t have to deal with the _schmucks_ who get merced everywhere else in the universe!”  
  
“Honey.” Persephone had to repeat herself multiple times, set Sora down, and grab Hades’ face with both hands before his tirade was ended. “She can say what she wants. It won’t change how I feel about you, or you about me. I _chose_ to marry you, and my one regret is that we only get to be like this for half a year.”  
  
The two gods touched foreheads in a romantic moment that Sora was too young to fully comprehend. He just knew he was effectively the third wheel and tried to leave the scene quickly. However, he found himself grabbed by a tendril of smoke once more.  
  
“This is getting kinda annoying,” he muttered while slowly rotating three-sixty in the air.  
  
“Right, the moment’s over--let’s see what we got to work with.” The two gods broke off from each other and examined Sora while walking in opposite directions around him. Persephone looked the faux-god over like he was merchandise she wasn’t sure about buying. “The brew’s clearly manifested as a seasonal deity--that’s good, it lends credibility.”  
  
“Turning leaves weird colors and making fruits grow ain’t a season I’ve ever heard of,” Hades said, doubtful. He held his chin between his thumb and pointer finger, then stopped Sora’s rotation. He spun the faux-god into a mostly vertical position and squinted. “Overall a good look, but it’s missing something. Aha.” Hades snapped his fingers, and a flame floated over his pointer finger.  
  
“Whoa-whoa-whoa!” Sora tried in vain to get away from the fire as Hades flung it onto his head. A second later there was a ‘fwoosh’ sound, but no burning pain.  
  
The God of the Underworld shaped a mirror in a skeletal black frame from his smoke and had it float in front of Sora. The teen’s hair was still red and relatively spiky, but had a layer of orange flame covering it without seeming to do any damage. “See? Much better look. Comes with having a fashion sense, you should look into getting one.”  
  
\--  
  
Olympus was a city-sized palace at the top of an impossibly tall mountain. The roofless buildings seemed to be made of carved marble, but in fact were clouds held in shape by the will of the gods. For mortal access, there was only one way in, a golden gate near the summit of the physical mountain, the border between the Land and Zeus’ domain: The Sky.  
  
On a surprisingly substantial cloud, Hermes delivered Aqua, the King’s men, Hercules and Megara to the gates. He bade them enjoy the sight of the world from Olympus while he ducked in through the gates.  
  
Aqua wanted to do just that--but when she looked out over the edge of the mountain and saw the plains far below, she found herself imposing the image of the Land of Departure’s surrounding landscape. With a sigh, she tried to force herself into the present, and dwell no more on what she couldn’t change.  
  
“I know that look.” Megara had come over to chat with the Keyblade Master and tapped Aqua on the shoulder as if to wake her up. “Trying to fight the ol’ nostalgia filter?”  
  
“A little bit, yeah.” Aqua took a deep breath, and when she let it out all she saw was the fields of Greece. “This place… reminded me of home--a place high in the mountains.”  
  
“Hmm. I’m a city-girl myself, so all I see down there is a long fall.”  
  
A sudden burst of laughter from the men drew the two women’s attention. Hercules was at the center of it, in the midst of telling a story about one of his exploits, and used Donald as the maiden he saved. Donald did not approve--he aggressively, magically, did not approve.  
  
As if her efforts to undo the fog of memory had not happened, Aqua looked upon the present Hercules and still saw the loveable goof that she had met years ago. “You know, of all the friends I’ve made? Hercules is the only one I can still recognize. Well--the ones I’ve been able to find news about, anyway.”  
  
“Wonderboy has that sort of charm. Comes with being hero classic.” Megara flicked her head back to the long drop, but Aqua saw the signs of a hidden smile. “From what I heard--you used to be a stone cold betty, fought Hades and a fake Titan all on your own. I expected you to be more like that Xena gal--gruff, confrontational, stuff like that.”  
  
“I have my moments.”  
  
Their conversation was put to an end when Hermes returned and threw the gates open for the guest of the gods. Only Aqua met this criterion, as Mickey wasn’t on hand to vouch for Donald and Goofy.  
  
The gods, Aqua saw in passing as she ascended the cloud-stairs, were colorful figures. Often literally--their skin and hair shone with an inner light in a rainbow of colors, no two exactly alike.  
  
She caught the dark figure of Hades in the corner of her eye and fought against her instincts to ready for combat. The lord of the dead seemed to have his own affairs--walking with a pink-skinned blonde and a teenage boy.  
  
Hercules had to catch Aqua from walking into a blue-skinned goddess as the keyblade Master was distracted. She only saw the teenager from behind--but he looked _so much_ like Sora that it dashed her thoughts. While she showered the goddess, Athena as Hercules introduced her, with apologies, Aqua was left with fresh despair. For a moment, she had hoped she had seen Sora, but in hindsight, recognized that the boy she saw was clearly a god, which Sora was not.  
  
\--  
  
Sora, Hades, and Persephone were seated at one end of a long oval table on Olympus--an open-air dining hall constructed for their use mere moments before they had been seated by a rainbow-goddess.  
  
“Remember,” the goddess of spring said to the disguised mortal in a quick whisper, “just let me set up the situation, and be yourself. Everyone can come away from this happy.”  
  
Something told Sora that she wasn’t _lying_ per se, but that Persephone was going to be wrong.  
  
A green-skinned red-headed woman, large both in height and figure, entered the room not too long afterward. Her robes and ornate hat styled after leaves bore the same color--and she carried _wheat_ of all things with her. “Bacchus couldn’t make it,” she said, her voice cold while she threw glares at Hades every so often. “So we won’t be needing such a big table.”  
  
As if it could hear her, the cloud-marble table and room shrank to be more appropriate for a small gathering.  
  
“And I was lookin’ forward to palling around with my brother-in-law,” Hades snarked. “Drink some nectar, talk about recent offerings, maybe talk about home improvement. Ya know, brother things.” The lord of the dead grinned into Demeter’s scowl as if expecting her to laugh at any second.  
  
“Mother, husband,” Persephone cut the tension and got the other gods to break their staring contest. “We only have these family meals a few times a century--and today’s a special day, can’t you at least pretend to like each other?”  
  
“Sure thing, babe.”  
  
“For _your_ sake, not for his.” Demeter set the wheat she carried in on the table and sat down. The moment she wasn’t touching it, the wheat poofed and became several food items in dishes lined interlocking patterns of right angles. “Now, what do you mean today is special? Some news I should be hearing?”  
  
Persephone simply cleared her throat and flicked her head in Sora’s direction.  
  
Demeter glanced at the faux-god, looked away, and then looked at him properly a moment later. It seemed, to Sora, that she hadn’t even acknowledged his presence.  
  
“Who…?” Demeter started, her voice confused but not upset.  
  
“Hi… Lady Demeter? I’m Sora,” the teen grinned awkwardly and waved.  
  
“Oi, don’t go adding no titles to people’s names,” Hades cut in and reached across the table to point at Sora. A bit of orange appeared in his hair but quickly vanished. “They’re family, not your bosses. Except me, I’m family _and_ your boss.”  
  
Persephone blew out his hair, which distracted the lord of the dead for a minute or two. In that time, Demeter stared at Sora--like she was having trouble understanding what he was. It was only when her leaf-hat began to turn orange and red that she seemed to piece it together.  
  
And then the shrieking, hugging, cheek-pinching _hell_ of a deific grandmother descended on him.  
  
“Oh, a grandson! He’s so skinny--but some of my cooking will fix that right up. And a seasonal deity, just like you, sweetie!” The green goddess crushed Sora--almost literally--with a hug before she set him down and started to pile his plate with glowing godly food.  
  
“His season doesn’t have a name yet, we thought you could help with that.” The springtime goddess took some food for herself and produced glasses from the marble-clouds of Olympus. “Hades, could you pass the nectar?”  
  
“Who’s the father?”  
  
Sora didn’t know much about god families--but he knew well enough to slip down under the table, after grabbing some of the honeycomb-looking slabs of food, the moment Demeter asked such a question. While he nibbled, the three true gods started a full on screaming match at each other over Demeter’s question.  
  
“Ooh, Demeter ambrosia.” A glowing pink-purple hand snatched one of the honeycomb slabs off Sora’s plate. Another goddess sat beside him as if she had always been there--she had an impossible hourglass figure, pink-purple skin, and blonde hair.  
  
On close inspection, she sort of resembled Persephone to Sora.  
  
“Oh hey, I’m Aphrodite, goddess of love.” Aphrodite winked at Sora and nibbled on the honeycomb slab--ambrosia with delight. “Oof, Demeter’s so good with cooking. Not as sweet as Hestia’s, but spicy!”  
  
“I’m Sora, nice to meet you. How’d you sneak in without them noticing you?”  
  
“Teleportation, duh.” Aphrodite rolled her eyes and snapped her fingers. Suddenly, both she and Sora were no longer under the table, but on the pillars surrounding the room, looking down upon it. “If Demeter wasn’t so frazzled by the harvest, she’d likely piece it together that you’re not really their kid. _I_ don’t care, mind. Grandkids will happen eventually, I’m cool with waiting--but it means a lot to me that you agreed to help Sepphie get some breathing room from Demeter. So I won’t tell anyone who doesn’t already know.”  
  
“Um, thanks.” Sora awkwardly ate some of the divine food while waiting for something else to happen. “So why are we up here?”  
  
“Because them screaming like that,” Aphrodite waved her hand at the spectacle below, “will bring others. And they’ll be a lot less tolerant of you pretending to be a god than I am.”  
  
\--  
  
“I hope you appreciate how unusual this situation is, Master Aqua. Mortals, even heroic mortals, are not usually allowed on Olympus.”  
  
Aqua bowed at the waist before the king of the gods: Zeus, god of justice and the sky. Hermes had brought Hercules and Aqua before the orange-skinned, purple-robed, and bombastic king of the gods rather than Apollo or Artemis because Zeus was aware of everything that happened in his domain, the sky--or the space between worlds. “I am beyond honored to be among such divine company, sir.”  
  
Zeus barked in laughter, “heh! Divine company, that’s a good one.” The king of Olympus fell backward, and a throne of marble clouds formed to catch him. “So, Keyblade Master, Hermes mentioned you required some… help?”  
  
In the gallery, Hercules gave her two thumbs up as encouragement.  
  
“Yes, milord.” The blunette did not rise from her bow to meet his gaze. “Heartless creatures have been destroying the worlds for years now--Keyblade Masters such as myself are needed to slay them and protect the worlds that remain. The other Masters are missing, I implore you for even a hint to their whereabouts.”  
  
Zeus barked in laughter once again and flicked his hand. As if a switch had been flipped, the sky shifted from desaturated blue to nighttime black, complete with stars. “I thought the sky was looking a bit sparse….” The god of the sky spun his hands over each other, while magic sparked in the space between. Suddenly, he threw his hands toward the sky, and the magic went with them--scattering into the night sky, and filling it with tens of thousands of new stars.  
  
Aqua looked up to see the events, and for a moment, hope returned to her. Zeus had the power to restore the worlds?!  
  
“Every so often the stars start to go out--so I just spend a day or two creating new ones when it happens.” The golden-skinned god shrugged like it was no big deal. “But it’s good to see a Keyblade Master worried about the worlds--you do your order credit.”  
  
Hope turned to ash in her mouth. While new worlds--and new people to live there was wonderful, Aqua vividly remembered the people she had met on worlds that no longer existed. Such as Yen Sid, Sugar Mama, or Prince Philip. Zeus’ banal approach to their suffering lit a fire inside her, but the Keyblade Master did not let it show too clearly.  
  
“Thank you, Lord Zeus. But… could you not raise the worlds that have fallen? Bring them back from the darkness?”  
  
The question befuddled the king of the gods, who looked out among his fellows as if seeking clarification. “Well--of course not. They’re _dead_ , right? That’s Hades’ territory.”  
  
Unseen, Aqua clenched a fist so tight she thought she might draw her own blood. But she said nothing. “I understand, milord. Still--my request?”  
  
“Oh, where the other Masters are? Well, give me a minute to--” A ruckus from elsewhere in the divine palace broke the sky god’s concentration and drew the gallery’s attention. “Uh-oh. Sounds like Demeter and Hades are at it again.”  
  
\--  
  
Sora could only stay up on the pillar with Aphrodite for so long before getting involved. Even if they weren’t his real family, he couldn’t stand to watch family fight each other like they were enemies. So when Hades, in full fire-mode, and Demeter, with thorny vines growing over her arms were about to come to blows, he stepped in.  
  
“Hey!” The keyblade wielder hopped off the pillar and rushed to get physically between the two of them. “Knock it off!”  
  
“Squirt, nana and I need to have some _words_ \--”  
  
“Dearie, your father and I are _talking_ \--”  
  
“Knock it off!” Sora shouted again. “This was supposed to be a nice meal, a nice meeting, and the two of you ruined it!” Sora pushed the two of them away--and with surprising ease, both Hades and Demeter stumbled back from each other. “You two don’t like each other, fine, whatever. But you both love Perse-mom.” Thankfully only Aphrodite seemed to notice his slip-up, not even Hades who knew better. “Can’t you just...act like you can tolerate each other? For her sake at least?”  
  
Persephone, who had been sitting at the table with her head down, rose and walked over to Sora. “Dear, it’s okay. Let’s go back to the Elysian Fields, and let these two talk.” The spring goddess guided the autumnal faux-god out of the room and pointedly ignored the protests of both Demeter and Hades.  
  
They walked through the crowds of Olympus, and kept to the edge of the palace as they had in the past, then made for the gate. “Did you eat anything before the fight started?” Persephone asked as if discussing the weather as they made their exit.  
  
“Um, some of that… ambrosia stuff. It was really nice!”  
Persephone’s expression of disinterest changed into wicked glee. “Food of the gods is like that. You’ll be having more on the regular, staying in the Fields with me.” They passed through a set of golden gates and walked down to the physical mountain. “We’re not really leaving, just hanging around for Hades and Demeter to calm down before we return.”  
  
“Sora?”  
  
A new voice drew the attention of the faux-god and genuine article and turned out to be Goofy standing at the base of the stairs, with Donald and an unknown woman on the mountaintop itself.  
  
“Goofy!” Sora departed from Persephone’s side and rushed down to meet the talking dog.  
  
The goddess herself seemed perplexed--why would Sora know these people? But her thought process was interrupted by a sudden gripping pain in her chest. Almost exactly on her heart.  
  
“Did you think I could not see through your petty manipulations?” A woman’s voice spoke to her as a black fire began to spring from her chest to cover the goddess’ body.  
  
The source, she saw as she twisted around, trying to find a way back to Olympus--a small Shadow Heartless, that had lurked under the stairs, and held now a pulsating gem cut in the shape of a heart. Her heart.  
  
“Your heartless will give me an unslayable beast--to go amongst your kin, and create for me an immortal army! And my victory shall be assured!”  
  
Sora turned away from explaining to Donald and Goofy that he wasn’t wearing a _skirt_ it was a robe, just in time to see Persephone’s body fade into a black and red fire. When the fire parted, a blue-black figure covered in ropey thorny vines, with red such vines for hair knelt in her place.  
  
The thorny vines of her hair stretched out, and wrapped around the gates of Olympus, and tore them down with a horrible shriek.  
  
Sora did not move at first, as the new Heartless shrieked and charged up the clouds. In the back of his mind, he began to realize he had just watched someone become a Heartless right in front of him. He had almost _liked_ Persephone, she was nice! Then suddenly it didn’t matter anymore.  
  
Being on an adventure didn’t seem so great after that, no matter how many pirates were involved. But Donald and Goofy snapped him out of it, and together they pursued the Heartless.  
  
\--  
  
Olympus was under attack, Aqua realized as curious shouts changed into terrified screams. Without thinking, she called forth Master’s Defender and ran in the direction of the screams. It was only a moment later when she realized Hercules was following her. The palace of the gods was being overrun with huge thorny vines--that grew smaller such vines to attack the gods that could defend themselves.  
  
Those that could not found themselves ensnared in brambles.  
  
A heartless, seemingly made from the thorns, and little larger than a short god stood as the cause and grappled with the lord of the dead when she approached.  
  
“Hades!” Aqua accused as she tossed Master’s Defender to impact the side of the creature’s head. It provided only a moment’s distraction but was all Hades needed to free one hand, encase it in a fire, and send the Heartless flying. “Is this one of your plans backfiring?”  
  
“Bluebird, my plans are things of beauty. Years of work goes into them. And I’m _never_ there to get caught in them myself!” Hades seemed offended but calmed himself enough to where only his hair was red. He glowered at the monster that grew the thorns from itself. “But I know who does that sorta work….”  
  
A cry drew Aqua’s attention back, and she saw Hercules trapped in a thorny vine, lifted off the ground. She sent fire magic at the growth, but to no effect. Suddenly, a fireball bigger than Aqua was tall sailed through the air and struck the vine. In an instant, it was rendered to ash, and Hercules was free--unconscious from the explosion, but free.  
  
“Looks like you need superior firepower,” Hades quipped, almost nonchalant. His right hand smoked as if it had been a doused torch. From around him, several Shadows darted about on the floor as thin as paper. The moment they rose from the ground to attack, the Master’s Defender spun out and struck them down, releasing their hearts.  
  
“Looks like you need someone that can destroy Heartless,” Aqua fired back.  
  
Without further speaking, the two former enemies moved together toward the thorn-Heartless, as it rose to fight again.  
  
\--  
  
Imagine the frustration of a boy and two veteran soldiers, just realizing how in over their heads they were. The thorns Persephone’s heartless had created were immune to their attacks--but at least Sora’s keyblade could pry them off their captives. Donald’s magic could neither heal the gods nor damage their attackers.  
  
About all they could do was keep the lesser heartless that appeared from pouncing upon the captured gods, and creating more of the divine horrors. But in time, the vines seemed to grow annoyed with their interference and trapped them too. It seemed that would be the end of it, as Sora watched the Shadow Heartless creep across the ground toward him.  
  
But then, rescue came. Demeter and Aphrodite--wielding thorns and sparkling magenta magic, combined to break free their fellow gods as well as Donald, Goofy, and Sora.  
  
“Oh dear, dear, dear,” Demeter clucked, almost scolding. “You’re brave to try and help out, but still a bit too young to be doing this.” She shoved a plate of ambrosia and a drink of nectar into his hand and gently shoved him away. “Go on, get to safety. Your grandfather and I will help handle this, then you can introduce us to your mortal friends!”  
  
Aphrodite waved as she and Demeter went off on further escapades, leaving three confused guys to watch them go.  
  
“Sora, has two grandmas?”  
  
“It’s news to me too, honestly.”  
  
“Goofy, everyone has two grandmas. Sora has three.”  
  
“Oh wow, just think of all the cookies!”  
  
\--  
  
Aqua and Hades had a good rhythm going for having absolutely no tolerance for the other. Hades would scorch the Heartless and its thorns, then Aqua would make use of its lessened defenses to damage it with her keyblade. Aside from the occasional times she or Hades were caught in the thorns, the fight was pretty one-sided in their favor.  
  
What she didn’t see was the metaphysical conflict raging.  
  
The keyblade was a weapon that dispelled the darkness trapping a heart--allowing it to be free. Thus, it could injure or kill a Heartless.  
  
The Heartless in question was that of a goddess--immortal, and unable to be injured or killed.  
  
With every injury struck, the two incompatible bits of information conflicted with one another and struggled to assert themselves as the superior rule. These struggles left otherwise invisible fractures in the Heartless and Master’s Defender--which came to a head when Persephone’s Heartless was weakened so much that Aqua went in for the killing blow.  
  
And a massive explosion resulted.  
  
Master’s Defender lodged itself in the darkness around Persephone’s heart--the two ideas screaming at each other that they won out, that they were the law of existence. But the struggle was fruitless, for both keyblade and Heartless destroyed each other before the ideas they represented could reach a satisfying conclusion.  
  
Aqua watched, in dawning horror, as the Master’s Defender broke apart and flew on the currents of the explosion, while Persephone’s heart floated to freedom. The keychain and pommel of the weapon landed relatively near her, so she scooped it up and held it close to her chest. More than the lost weapon, she mourned the loss of another treasured artifact of her past--of Master Eraqus.  
  
The lord of the dead, however, seemed angrier than he’d ever been. His skin and hair both burned with the color of orange fire, and he walked with purpose out of the impromptu arena. He would tell no one, but his contract with Maleficent was broken--she had agreed that Hades and his wife would be safe from the Heartless if he served, but that had not proven true. Just like how his deal with Hercules had soured, so had his with Maleficent. He stopped and called over his shoulder. “Sora’s here, you know. Probably being smothered by Demeter--lovely woman, big, green, cooks pretty nice food.”  
  
Aqua glanced in Hades’ direction and squared her shoulders. Even though she had just lost her weapon, she stood proudly as a full Master. “And why should I believe you?”  
  
“You don’t gotta believe me, just use your eyes for something besides brooding. For once. Ya yutz.” Hades left, and as he went he pulled a roll of parchment from the air and began to tear it up. “He’s free to go, just knock some of Maleficent’s teeth out for me, would ya?”  
  
\---

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick reminder that Aphrodite came into being shortly after Ouranos was killed, so she lived through the Titan's rule. Before she hooked up with Hephaestus, she got around a bit. Also RIP Master's Defender.


	18. A great deal of talking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bunch of people say a bunch of things while I talk about how they feel.

\---- **Chapter 18: A great deal of talking**  
  
It had been a gamble, to openly break a contract. Both she and Hades were creatures of rules, formality, and agreements. But the possibility to have a small army of Heartless that even keybearers couldn’t slay, totally loyal to her and her alone was too delicious an avenue not to explore.  
  
But as all gambles went eventually, she ended up losing. One-third of her court had broken free--as Hades was no longer under her control, so too were the minions bound to her through him released. Further, by breaking her word she found herself wracked with a persistent burning pain in her chest that would flare up and incapacitate her at random.  
  
But she was Maleficent, Mistress of All Evil, she would bounce back from this. She refused to do otherwise.  
  
\--  
  
In the grand chapel of her castle, Hollow Bastion, she watched her apprentice train. Swordplay was the young silver-haired teen’s strength, so she had her great swordsmen lieutenants training the boy. Maleficent watched in cursory approval as the island boy did mock battle with the colorful and eclectic Captain Hook, while an older teen who could have passed for Riku’s sibling critiqued the boy from the sidelines.  
  
“Use your opponent’s inertia against them when you counterattack,” chided the silver-haired Kadajj. “Force him to commit to an action that leaves him exposed.”  
  
Riku was at a disadvantage on every front against Hook. Less experienced, shorter in both height and weapon range, and too used to success. Maleficent had given him the Soul Eater--a weapon modeled after an outstretched batlike wing, with a blue eyeball set into the hilt. The weapon was meant to slash at enemies, and Hook’s sword was a fine-tip rapier, meant for thrusting. Still, he fought as Maleficent wished him too.  
  
The training session ended when the evil fairy tapped the stone floor with her staff. With gestures alone, she bade her lieutenants leave, and her apprentice approach her. “We are betrayed, Riku,” she told the islander teen in a mock bitter tone. “I feel that the magic that has kept the duplicitous Hades under control has been broken. What this means for your friend, I don’t know.”  
  
“Then let me go after him,” Riku replied, face and voice heavy with the foolish confidence of youth. “Hades looked like he barely knew how to fight, I’ll rough him up and get him back on the leash.”  
  
“While I share your intent, sending you after him would be unwise.” The green-skinned fairy put on a facade of concern. “He could inflict harm upon your friend to force you to do as he bids. No--it will be better if we send someone else to occupy Hades’ time while we locate your other friend.”  
  
Riku seemed about ready to protest, to be expected. But she stopped him by holding up her hand.  
  
“But fear not, I already have a task in mind for you. As training for your eventual rescue of Sora, I will send you to another world to rescue its princess. She will soon face an unjust trial, and be executed without cause.”   
  
Her distraction seemed to do the trick and got Riku’s mind off of Sora. “Fine,” the teenager grumbled. “Just make sure you’re ready to fix whatever damage Hades does to my friend once we’ve got him back.”  
  
\--  
  
Sora, confused by the recent turn of events, had only one thing to say. “Huh?”  
  
“I said,” the Lord of the Underworld repeated himself, hair perpetually orange, “that if you deal with the double-crossing _witch_ who turned my wife into a Heartless, I’ll let you out of your contract.” He mimed tearing up a sheet of paper. “Free as a bird, off the hook, dodging the bullet, whatever turn of phrase helps you figure it out.”  
  
“And… you won’t make me go blind or anything?” Sora, still in his disguise of a seasonal deity, looked around on Olympus to make sure no one was overhearing their conversation. Aphrodite’s words on how well other gods would take his disguise gave him a bit to worry about.  
  
Hades, visibly annoyed, pinched the bridge of his nose and summoned the parchment contract which bound Sora. “I’m invoking article three which allows us to alter the terms of the contract after the fact if all involved parties consent.” A quill strongly resembling fish bones appeared in his hand and permitted him to write over the old terms of the contract. “Look--see? You _axe_ Maleficent a question, and I let you go, no strings attached. No messy surprises. One-hundred percent, _on the level_.”  
  
Sora examined the writing as Hades progressively shoved it further and further in his face. “Okay, okay!” He took the fishbone quill and signed his name once more, afterward the contract exploded into smoke. “But… you’re a god, can’t you just _smile_ her or something?”  
  
Hades’ skin around his head began to light up, and his expression almost devolved into a bestial snarl as he turned and began to pace. “Any other time, _yes_. I fill out some paperwork, hand it over to Zeus, bada-bing, bada- _boom_. But Maleficent has some power in her corner. Makes her immune to being put in the ground permanently.”  
  
“She’s immortal?”  
  
“Sorta--it’s complicated, involves memories and such.” The god of the dead stopped suddenly and fished around inside his smokey toga for a moment before he produced a vial of strange purple liquid. “So--I’m going to give you this.”  
  
Sora jumped back as Hades was suddenly in his face once more, rings of moving fire _inside_ his eyes, around his pupils.  
  
“You hit her hard enough, she’s going to shapeshift into a dragon. When that happens, you toss _this_ into her mouth. And then she’s mortal--and I can make sure her time six feet under is as long as she deserves. Capiche?”  
  
“Capiche.” The vial was passed to Sora, whereupon it vanished and left behind some orange and yellow leaves. “Um…?”  
  
“It’s magic, squirt, it’ll come back when it needs to.” Hades ran his hands through his hair and somehow compelled them to return to their normal blue color. “Right--now for the send-off from Demeter, and Aphrodite.”  
  
\--  
  
“... we’ll have a list of required materials once we examine the shards in greater detail, kupo. For the opportunity to examine a keyblade, we’ll waive all fees pursuant to this order, kupo.”  
  
Aqua nodded at the holographic projection of the moogle in the Black Pearl stateroom. She placed a leather bag in which the shards of Master’s Defender lay, and the teleportation effect whisked the shattered weapon off to the moogle’s workshop. “And has there been any trouble with my other order?”  
  
“None at all, kupo. We’ll have it ready for pickup within a few days.”  
  
With the business concluded, Aqua stepped away from the moogle interface just in time for the doors to open up. In walked Sora, dressed in the style of Greece… with his hair on fire, and glowing. He was partially blind from carrying a towering pile of Greecian pots, small wooden boxes, and a large clam shell, but seemed aware of his surroundings enough to navigate toward the table.  
  
Before he noticed Aqua, Sora put the armful of items on the table, over the built-in maps, and used a spell to change his outfit back to his normal island attire. Shortly thereafter, Aqua drew Sora’s attention by clearing her throat.  
  
“Hey! I’m back!” The teen told her like it wasn’t obvious. “And not missing any pieces.”  
  
“Well that’s good,” Aqua replied. For a moment, she wanted to scream--to explode in questions about where Sora had been, what he had been doing, how he had seemingly become an Olympian god. But in the back of her mind, she remembered the Fairy Godmother’s words about trust. Which in turn made her reflect on how, if Eraqus had trusted his students, this entire situation could have been avoided. “Guess we should get caught up on the training you missed, hmm? The ship won’t leave for an hour or so, plenty of time.” Aqua forced nonchalance as she walked past Sora to the stateroom doors.  
  
“W-wait!” Her student’s befuddled shout caused Aqua to pause at the door. “Don’t you want to know where I was? How I got there? Or any of that?”  
  
  
“I would like to know, and if you want to tell me--I’ll listen.” She turned and smiled over her shoulder at him. “But I trust you, and I trust in your abilities. As long as you’re safe now, what happened then doesn’t worry me in the slightest.”  
  
She left the stateroom without speaking further and missed how Sora processed what she said, and lit up from her belief in him. Mere seconds after she left, Sora followed after and started on the story of his first solo adventure.  
  
\--  
  
The jungle was deep and full of dangers. Quicksand, dead trees, predatory cats, and worse: Englishmen with guns. The Englishmen with guns primarily concerned Luxord on his trek through the jungle. Fortunately, a periodic utilization of blizzard magic kept him from dying of heat stroke in his black coat, and the temperature difference kept the monkeys from bothering him.  
  
The jungle’s nature kept him from using the Corridors of Darkness to simply teleport to his desired location. The only available Corridor was to and from the world--he’d had to leave the realm of darkness, go to another world, then come to the jungle. And of course, he hadn’t emerged anywhere near his destination.  
  
The lost city of Hanuman.  
  
As long as he did not violate the law, he knew the jungle’s keeper would not disturb him--Luxord had it on good authority that the black coat tasted awful. He saw the jungle keeper in passing--the only reason he knew it wasn’t as it seemed was due to the book of prophecy. The imitation was otherwise perfect. The keeper, he guessed, was curious as to why someone from another world was walking about like they knew where they were going.  
  
Luxord didn’t give the possibility of it preemptively attacking him much thought--he was more focused on playing his first card from his straight, the Black Joker. Playing the Joker first was a tremendous risk--but the card’s iconography strongly reminded Luxord of Sora. He hoped that the similarities would suggest them working well together, though his understanding of the relevant Foreteller did not indicate such.  
  
He could see the stone towers of Hanuman in the distance and continued on his way. “Given her name, it might have been more fitting to play the Ace here. But there is too high a chance she would draw some unknown reaction from Ventus’ heart.” After a moment of silence, Luxord sighed. “I probably sound mad, talking to no one. But perhaps,” he drew the card from his coat and examined it, “you can hear some of it? Perhaps you will help the two of them with all you have heard?”  
  
The masked figure on the card didn’t answer back, so the Gambler went back to his long walk.


	19. Black Jungle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remember to keep the jungle law.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For today's fic, the part of the Tarzan world will be played by the 1994 live action version of the Jungle Book.

  
\----- **Chapter 19:** Black Jungle.  
  
Sora faced his most strenuous, finicky, and overall unpleasant task since he had become Aqua’s apprentice. It was something he had absolutely failed at over a dozen times over the course of the Pearl’s voyage from Olympus Coliseum. Yet no matter how many times he failed, Aqua point blank refused to move on to other forms of training.  
  
“It was unpleasant for me when I went through it as a student,” she would say, serene and looked off into the distance like she watched the memories play back before her. “And the same with my Master, and his before him.” Then she would casually move her pawn, have it become a queen, and place his king in checkmate.  
  
Sora decided that if he lived to take students, he would skip teaching them chess.  
  
“Chess represents the beginnings of strategy. You have a suite of units that each do specific things, and you have to use them to secure a victory that your enemy cannot escape from.” Aqua’s first lecture had begun such when she set up the board the first time. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking that being good at chess makes you a good strategist though. It’s only the beginning, meant to teach the basic concepts.”  
  
“What comes after chess?” Sora asked, eager to get an idea of what he would be working towards once he had suffered sufficiently for Aqua’s liking.  
  
“Blackjack to teach estimation, poker for bluffing, and then sports for practical application.” Her serene expression remained strong in the face of Sora’s absolute befuddlement. “I don’t think lectures and book reading would work for you, so I thought of games that use those skills instead.”  
  
“Oh… thanks. Why are the next two card games though?”  
  
Aqua shrugged, “I’m really good at card games. Though I tend to get thrown out of casinos when I win too often.” The blunette spun the board so she controlled the black pieces for the upcoming game. “Maybe someday, I’ll tell you about all the Munny I won at the Mirage Arena by betting on my friend’s matches.”  
  
\--  
  
Once the moogles had finished on the physical part of her original order, it was time to begin the magical portion from her. It wasn’t her first time working the magic, but without a keyblade to keep her magical energies topped off, she was limited in how much of the spells she could combine at once.  
  
And after a few days toward their next stop on the voyage, something distracted her from the spellwork. She felt, not far away, a deep darkness--it was almost like the realm of darkness in its abyssal nature. And for such darkness to exist in the realm of light had only one viable cause in her mind: A world falling to darkness.  
  
The Captain took little convincing to divert course toward the falling world, which surprised her visibly.  
  
“As travelers of Traverse Town, we be bound by a sacred trust. Not just words, but a spell. Iffin we wish to have safe harbor, we must be as safe harbor to others,” Barbossa declared in the face of Aqua’s incredulity. “We cannot turn our backs on those about to lose their home. Our obligations be clear--to take on as many of the doomed as the Pearl can hold.” Just when she began to think better of him, the Captain chortled. “And… iffin any items of great value from the world should find their way to us--why, we’d just be preservin’ their culture, miss.”  
  
And while she abhorred the very notion of letting _pirates_ rescue people, or their possessions, the Pearl would be able to do so far better than she could alone. Perhaps, she pondered, they would see the Organization in the process of evacuating people as Philip had claimed.  
  
It proved moot in the end.  
  
The nature of the world didn’t provide sufficient open space for the Pearl to land--it was a jungle world, with only two cities visible from high above--one abandoned and one thriving. Aqua found the situation pleasing just as much as Barbossa found it deflating.  
  
“Alright,” she said to Sora and the King’s men once it was decided they would descend, and not the ship itself. “I’ll go to the heavily populated city and see how badly the people are faring under Heartless attack. Sora, you, Donald, and Goofy will go to the abandoned city and seek out the keyhole.”  
  
“Ya don’t think it’ll be where all the people are?” Goofy scratched his head under his hat while he spoke.  
  
“If the world hasn’t fallen, then the Heartless haven’t found the keyhole. And if they would be where the people are--so logically, the keyhole isn’t there, or they would have found it by now.”  
  
“Well, I guess that makes sense…”  
  
“It makes sense to me,” Sora chimed. It did not, in fact, make sense to him.  
  
“Then let’s be off,” Aqua said and walked to the railing of the ship. “Donald, you can handle getting these goofballs down there, right?”  
  
The court magician scoffed, “I could do it while laying an egg.” But Aqua had already lept over the side and was unable to hear his boast.  
  
\--  
  
Donald’s magic set the trio down in a stone courtyard, intricately carved, and covered in plant life. Statues of monkeys were _everywhere_ , and Sora found himself in awe at the sight. As his eyes adjusted, he realized that actual monkeys were in abundance as well, though they had scattered from the trio’s arrival.  
“This place looks so cool,” the teenager cried as he watched monkeys crawl on the monkey statues to look at the strangers. “They don’t look like Jack, though.”  
  
“Monkeys come in all shapes and sizes, Sora,” Goofy replied, and clapped him on the shoulder.  
  
“Yeah, pretty sure you’re a monkey of some kind,” Donald groused and started off toward a doorway. He ignored Goofy’s deflated sigh and Sora’s outrage and continued onward, and in so doing failed to notice one of the monkeys reach down and swipe his hat. “Don’t get fussy ‘bout it, humans are monkeys the same way I’m a duck and Goofy’s a--” The magician noticed a draft on his head and felt upward for his hat. Moments later, he realized the theft, and lept to and fro looking for the cutpurse. When the monkey was spotted, Donald called forth his staff and temporarily darkened the sky to rain lightning down upon everyone in the vicinity.  
  
Instantly, Sora felt something grip his heart. He had a brief vision of burning eyes in a face composed of orange and black stripes and realized only later that he had been holding his breath. “Donald, stop!”  
  
Donald’s spell stopped suddenly, and from the confused expression on his face, he didn’t know why either. “Yes, please stop endangering yourself and your companions before you’ve been _five minutes_ on the world,” called an accented voice from high above.  
  
“Look!” Goofy pointed, and when his fellows followed where he indicated they saw a man in a black coat standing in one of the nearby towers.  
  
“Greetings, hello, all forms of salutations--welcome to the Black Jungle,” said the hooded man. “This world has a peculiar law about it: You may only kill to eat, or to keep from being eaten. To do otherwise will bring the jungle’s keeper upon you.”  
  
“I wasn’t gonna--” Donald started, but was harshly cut off by the distant roar of some unknown animal.  
  
“ _Control your temper_ , Master Magician. If Shere Khan comes for you there is nothing any of us can do to stop it.” Without further conversation, the hooded man stepped away from the window and further into the stone building.  
  
The trio stood in silence for a moment, processing the warning. And in that time, a monkey casually reached down and swiped Goofy’s hat as well.  
  
\--  
  
The moment Aqua set foot on the world, she knew something was _profoundly_ wrong. The air felt like eyes were constantly on her, with unseen enemies lurking about for any sign of weakness. And up close, it felt almost exactly like the realm of darkness. She had set down, using the wind to slow her descent, outside the city in the jungle.  
  
The feeling of being watched at all times for weakness did not lessen when she entered the stone city. All that changed was that she could see the creatures that aimed to hunt her. Often, they wore the faces of men, but not always. There was a divide between two groups--those who dressed in colorful, flowing clothes and those who wore military uniforms. She knew them to be different because they spoke distinct languages. But neither of them seemed to care for her. Children were directed not to look at her, and men called after her like she was a strumpet.  
  
All in all--it seemed they suffered no Heartless attacks. So then, why did the world seemed so steeped in darkness?  
  
It was simple to bypass the defenses of the locals and enter the most fortified building--an actual military fort. The people of the city had little magic, and none of the military personnel possessed the means to stop her double jumping between windows and over the wall. If not for the ever-present darkness, this would seem an ordinary world to the Keyblade Master.  
  
Then she heard something. It was faint at first but grew louder with passing seconds--a man shouting for a doctor. It was the first incident not to be born from her presence, so she followed after the shouting man’s voice.  
  
She found him minutes later--standing in a doorway to some lavish suite, a tanned man in only a faded white loincloth speaking to another such man dressed in servant’s livery. The doctor the less opulently dressed man sought had left earlier, she gathered from eavesdropping.  
  
“If you need a healer,” Aqua spoke in earnest as she approached, “I can help.”  
  
The servant looked at Aqua in confusion, then glanced down at her wardrobe and hastily looked away, while the half-dressed man seemed frantic. “You are doctor too?” His accent was that of one who was speaking a second language, Aqua noticed.  
  
She nodded. “I am, from experience but not a title. Who needs healing?”  
  
“Baloo, this way!” With unprecedented haste, the half-dressed man dashed off down the halls--and Aqua followed behind him with equal speed.  
  
\--  
  
It would be two days before Sora or Aqua found each other again, Luxord knew. For all that they were schemer’s poison, he knew the timetable laid out from looking around the events presently occurring as they had been recorded. It was like card counting--guessing the value of the dealer’s cards from what he had, and what had already been played.  
  
Leaving Sora for days in the lost city of Hanuman would be _unwise_ so Luxord prepared himself for spending a considerable amount of time arranging things. Step one of which was to play his card and leave the Foreteller for Sora and company to find.  
  
In a hallway of carved stone, where a channel of oil circled the entire room halfway up the wall, Luxord decided to play his Joker. The ground was covered in dead plant life, collected over hundreds of years, and without the oil lit, it was terrifyingly difficult to see. “Come on out… Gula,” said the Gamble of Fate as he tossed the card into the floor.  
  
By speaking the Joker’s name, the spell that bound him began to smoke and catch fire. In an explosion of glittering dust, the Leopard Foreteller appeared on the ground. His severe injuries immediately became a factor, as his blood began to collect on the floor and the young man wheezed for breath.  
  
As if he were a nurse, Luxord crouched down and offered aid. “I can only do a little,” he spoke to the Foreteller. What curative magic Luxord possessed, he provided to the injured teen. “Someone is coming who is a better healer than I am. He has the keyblade, and will answer your questions.”  
  
Gula, behind his leopard mask, tried to speak. But instead, he started a coughing fit that sounded terrifyingly like a death rattle to Luxord.  
  
“Hush. Save your strength. And for pity’s sake--don’t give in to despair.” His magic spent, Luxord stood and began to back away. “The traitor was never one of the Foretellers--that was your critical error. Reflect on that, goodbye.”  
  
The boy was smart, distrustful, and prone to stupid ideas when given no avenues left to chase. Rather like the Gambler himself, Luxord realized in hindsight. Perhaps, if they met again, they could talk about it.  
  
\---  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who's that Foreteller?! It's Gula!


	20. Left and Right hands.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two connected forces that aren't communicating with each other.

\---- **Chapter 20:** Left and Right hands.  
  
Alone in the dark, Gula wanted so desperately to be dead. Not to die, per se. Dying was painful, as he could give personal and academic information about. But the dead were at peace, they gained some sort of insight from crossing over that made them serene, almost smug. And Gula wanted that--he wanted to have the situation made clear so that all the chaos that had been caused by the absolute _mess_ he’d made of the world could be fixed with a few cryptic lines of dialogue.  
  
Then he started to wonder if the issues he wanted to be dead to fix would cause him to become a ghost or some other form of undead. To distract himself from the growing chill in his extremities, he began to ponder what sort of undead he would become. A ghost would be the most likely, he decided.  
  
At least he would die somewhere interesting. The physical location was covered in interesting murals along the walls, and the world itself felt profoundly like the realm of darkness while clearly being in the realm of light.  
  
But destiny didn’t like Gula enough to let him die--as evidenced by two anthropomorphized animals and a spiky-haired teen only slightly younger than Gula suddenly crowding him and trying to speak to him. They looked… vaguely familiar--then he realized he’d made medals of them for dozens of his union members.  
  
“Hold on,” the smallest of the three, a duck who wore no pants, said and waved a small staff. “Sora, you can heal, help me out!”  
  
“Right!” The boy produced a keyblade--a simple thing that sort of resembled the mass-produced Starlight given to Union members--and together the two of them worked healing magic upon the dying Foreteller.  
  
“Been saving this, hope it helps,” the second anthropomorphized animal, a goofy-looking dog, held out a golden orb above the injured teen. An elixir, he realized. The orb broke apart into green and blue dust that then worked their way into his wounds magically. It wasn’t… fun feeling his flesh knit back together, bones snap back into place and physically experiencing his empty veins filling back up. But Gula was alive and well after a few minute’s time.  
  
His first action upon realizing this was to take a deep breath--his first since Aced had crushed his ribs--and leap to his feet from his laying down position. “Thanks for fixing me up--I’m guessing now is where we do introductions?” The leopard-masked boy was about to lead the introductions with his own name when he noticed something… odd about the keyblade bearer who had helped heal him. “...Why are your shoes so big?”  
  
The teen looked down at his enormous yellow shoes--almost clownish in their proportions relative to the rest of his body. “What’s wrong with big shoes? Why do you wear a mask, huh? Well...part of a mask, anyway.”  
  
Gula suddenly remembered the uppercut from Ira that had snapped off a third of his mask. “...Do they at least make funny noises when you walk?”  
  
“No, but that would be pretty funny if they did. I’m Sora, and these guys are Donald and Goofy.”   
  
“I’m… Gula.” He had wanted to preface his name with his title, of Master. But he was in an unknown location with people he only knew tangentially. It would be… _unwise_ to reveal too much about himself.  
  
“So, did you get into a fight with a tiger or something? You were pretty badly messed up when we found you.” Sora rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “And your clothes are all shredded.”  
  
“It was a bear, actually,” the Foreteller half-lied. “A unicorn might have been involved--I can’t remember the details all that well.”  
  
\--  
  
The person in need of healing turned out to be a bear, ‘Baloo’ according to the half-dressed man. Baloo was so hurt he could barely muster the strength to growl at Aqua as she examined his wound.  
  
“It’s just a gunshot, easily fixed,” she told the frantic native man. Carefully, so as not to inflict greater suffering, she used a Magnet spell to retrieve the bullet lodged in the brown bear’s side, then applied a massive Curaga to him for mending the injury. The bullet itself was discarded, as she doubted either the bear or the man wanted a memento of the awful situation.  
  
As soon as Baloo was treated, and made curious noises about the lack of pain, he and the half-dressed man were embraced like brothers.  
  
“Here, this should help you in the event this happens again.” Aqua reached out and quickly tapped the half-dressed man on the head, and imparted a simple Cure spell onto him in so doing.  
  
The man broke his embrace with the bear and examined his head with his hands. Aqua remembered being given her first spells--it was like a sudden revelation. “Thank you,” he said. “Baloo and I should return to the jungle now.”  
  
“If you don’t mind my asking, how did your friend get shot?”  
  
Man and bear had been in the process of leaving the jungle clearing just a few minute’s run outside the city when she spoke. The man looked sadly down at the bear and laid one hand down on him. “Baloo stood for me when men with guns tried to take me away. Drove them off, and almost died because of it.”  
  
“Men with guns? You mean the soldiers around the city?”  
  
The man shook his head. “They were not soldiers, I think word… bandits?”  
  
The weaponless Master frowned. While there seemed to be no Heartless she could find so far--they would likely be beckoned by those with strong darkness, and thieving bandits fit that bill to her. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to deal with those bandits. Can you tell me how to find them?”  
  
Both man and bear seemed startled by this development. “You… fight?”  
  
“When necessary, I have been known to slap a fool in need of slapping, yes.” Aqua was hardly surprised that the two of them assumed her unwilling to fight--she hadn’t seen any of women among the soldiers, after all. Assumptions were made.  
  
“Okay,” the man nodded, quickly adjusting to the concept of a woman who fought. “But remember to keep the jungle law. You can only kill to eat, or to keep from being eaten.”  
  
“A tall order, but I think I can manage it. If we’re to fight alongside each other, we should know each other’s names--I’m Aqua.”  
  
“Mowgli.” He extended his hand, and Aqua automatically shook it. Baloo watched Mowgli do this and mimed the action, ignorant of its meaning, but still Aqua shook his paw. “Men with guns are bad at hiding their trails--easy to follow. I show you how.”  
  
Once explained, it actually _was_ easy to follow the path laid by people through the jungle. All that was necessary was patience and knowing what to look for. Disturbed plants, fewer animals, distressed noises from birds, that sort of thing. While on the path to where Mowgli said the bandits were, Aqua even saw evidence of where she had been upon first traversing the jungle.  
  
They were attacking a carriage and had slain several of the military men escorting it when Aqua, Mowgli, and Baloo arrived. The wild man and the bear snuck around to attack where the bandits where thinnest and they could rescue the carriage riders.  
  
Aqua went where the bandits where thickest, to break them like a storm would break a straw house.  
  
“Thunder.” A basic lightning spell speared the ground in front of her as she approached, and created a ring of electricity that spread through the bandits. Nothing lethal, but _painful_ , and distracting enough for Aqua to walk up to them without incident and… “Sleepga.” ..Remove them as threats.  
  
When she met up with Mowgli and Baloo again, it was to find the carriage being driven away by a pair of bandits with a woman and older man as hostages. Mowgli and a helmeted man dressed in a tacky khaki suit watched it drive off, but Aqua did not.  
  
“Hastega.” The weaponless Master shone with a layer of magic before she darted off after the carriage with the speed of the wind. She wouldn’t let them get away--not when she still had the strength to pursue.  
  
Mowgli, Baloo, and their rescued friend watched her zoom away in absolute befuddlement. But Mowgli adapted quickly. “Doctor, go with Baloo, he will take you back to the village.”  
  
“I say--I must have struck my head when I fell,” the Doctor said as he stood and started to walk back down the road with the bear at his side. His expression was dazed, and his voice conveyed a dreamlike confusion. “Scantily clad women beating up bandits? Oh dear, what would mother think?”  
  
With the speed of the wind, Mowgli followed after the carriage and Aqua. But he was not blessed with magic, so he lagged far behind. In a strange way, this benefited him, as he could see the creature loping through the jungle in pursuit of the pale-skinned people--Shere Khan.  
  
He had not seen Aqua violate the jungle law, but Shere Khan was capricious. Perhaps he hunted them both for meat and the crimes of the bandits.  
  
Aqua knew something was wrong when she felt a terrifying presence. It didn’t distract her from running after the carriage and the hostages--the woman saw her chasing them and called out for help, Aqua couldn’t let her down. But the feeling of being watched, of being _hunted_ had magnified a hundredfold.  
  
It was like fighting that Heartless creature that could turn itself invisible once more. Almost exactly like it. A terrible roar drew Aqua’s attention to her flank, where she saw a tiger leap from the jungle--on a path to intercept her. Instinctively, she started to put up a barrier, but it was too late.  
  
The hostage gave out an anguished cry as she watched the tiger pounce Aqua, and the two go rolling into the jungle and out of sight.  
  
\--  
  
After a while, the sound of monkeys chattering to each other became comfortable background noise. To Sora at least. He suspected Goofy found it okay as well, but Donald and Gula were definitely annoyed by it.  
  
Donald and Goofy had yet to retrieve their hats from the monkeys to the Magician’s frustration. Neither Sora or Gula had been bothered by the monkeys all that much--in Sora’s case because all of his fancy stuff was attached to him, and in Gula’s because the masked teen was straight up too fast for the monkey’s to catch.  
  
The ruined city didn’t offer much in the way of directions to the keyhole, but no Heartless had appeared either. But at least fruit trees grew in abundance, and some of the monkeys were fun to play with. In particular, a large orangutan who sometimes wore an elaborate crown would set up games. Most of them featured the man in the black coat from earlier, and sections of the city that would attempt to crush them, bury them or impale them from multiple angles.  
  
In hindsight, Sora began to think the games were rather mean-spirited, borderline unfun. But the man in the black coat was a really good sport when he lost.  
  
After one such game, where the quartet had to navigate an obstacle course by swinging from metal hoops hanging from the ceiling, the man in the black coat needed to take a break. This was the perfect opportunity to talk to him, Sora realized. He was momentarily separated from Gula, Donald, and Goofy due to a close call forcing Sora onto the course the black-coated man had been racing against them on.  
  
“Why are you still here?” Sora asked the man in all black, as he leaned on the wall, desperate for breath. “You warned us, and there aren’t any Heartless here so you don’t need to be evacuating people….”  
  
“There are no Heartless… here at all,” the man said, winded but still somehow charming. “They can’t get here--no one can directly get here from the realm of darkness, they have to go to other worlds first then come here, and the majority of Heartless aren’t tactical enough for such thought.”  
  
“Oh.” The keyblade wielder rubbed the back of his head and frowned. “Then… why are we here at all? Master Aqua said this world was about to fall to darkness.”  
  
“She was wrong, Sora. A lesson you ought to teach Gula is that people can be _wrong_.” The hooded man stood, and for a moment Sora caught sight of blond hair and metal bits in his ears. “This world can’t fall to darkness, because it _is_ darkness.”  
  
“...I don’t think I know enough about the worlds to understand the difference, mister.” The teen crossed his arms and frowned. “Could you explain it some more?”  
  
The man waved his hand, dismissive. “There are seven special people who have hearts of pure light, and twelve special worlds that have hearts of pure darkness. Neither group are inherently good or bad, they just _are_. That is why you are here--to learn this knowledge.”  
  
Sora frowned deeper and was about to speak when a section of stone wall behind the two of them began to move. On the other side was Gula, Donald, and Goofy. The three of them were slightly singed, and more of Gula’s face under his mask was visible. Gula, seeing the cloaked man, rushed forward which in turn prompted the cloaked man to run. The two of them moved _so fast_ he struggled to follow where they went.  
  
Moments later, Gula returned, holding his head in his hands. “I don’t _get it_ , I try to catch him as hard as I can and he just…. Slips through my fingers. He can’t be faster than me, _he can’t._ ”  
  
Sora didn’t understand why Gula wanted to catch him so desperately, and neither did Goofy or Donald from their expressions. “Maybe… he’s making you slower?”  
  
Sora’s suggestion got Gula to snap his head up in realization. “Oh. That makes sense.”  
  
“What you chasin’ him for anyways?” Donald, tactful as ever, asked in an accusatory tone.  
  
“He has answers that I need.”  
  
Donald and Goofy looked ready to question him some more, but around the room circular plates started to fall away from the walls and reveal enormous volumes of _salt_ pouring into the room. Around the same time, the wall they had entered through started to close.  
  
“Right, staying here is a bad idea, let’s keep moving.” And so the quartet made a hasty exit, with Sora pondering what a ‘heart of pure darkness’ meant, and what questions Gula had to be worth chasing someone with such speed. Maybe they were related?  
  
Sora shook the thought off. Two events didn’t have to be linked, even if they happened close together. Riku would call it a ‘fall-see”.  
  
\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How do you escape someone faster than you? By making them slower than you.


	21. The pros and cons of cats.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lions, and tigers, and leopards, oh my!

\---- **Chapter 21:** : The pros and cons of cats.  
  
The game of cat and mouse continued into the night. Whenever some obstacle set by King Louie did not prevent it, Gula would chase after him. Perhaps the Foreteller somehow knew Luxord had the Leopard’s book of prophecies, or that he assumed Luxord had the cards containing the other Foretellers on his person. But either way, his purpose in Hanuman wasn’t to answer Gula’s questions. At least not while the boy demanded them with the threat of violence--it wasn’t civilized.  
  
He lurked in a tower, overlooking the courtyard where his temporary wards had made camp. In his hands, he shuffled a deck of cards. Gula was the Joker, the wild card. His actions couldn’t be predicted once released--in that way he too was schemer’s poison. But how could that be, Luxord wondered. Gula’s decision to split Kingdom Hearts had caused the Keyblade War, exactly as the book of prophecies had depicted. In the keychain of his weapon, he bore one of the enemy’s Gazing Eyes--though Luxord didn’t yet know if such a small Eye actually functioned.  
  
“Hey!”  
  
The sudden voice from below startled Luxord into drawing one of his cards and hold it between his fingers ready to toss. Down below was Sora, clearly amused at having surprised his gambling protector. The boy crossed his arms behind his head and waited for Luxord to relax before speaking again.  
  
“Gula has some questions for you, and he’s kinda bummed that he can’t catch you. So… could he just come and ask you questions?”  
  
“Dear boy, Gula could ask his questions at any time. But he tried to force them out of me, so I’m afraid I’m not going to be giving out consolation… prizes….” Luxord had started strong and channeled faux outrage at Gula’s attempts into his words. But towards the end, Sora started to do The Face.  
  
The Face was an expression that Xion and Roxas had in common, a sort of hurt pout that seemed to pull at Luxord’s memories of feelings. They had learned quickly that use of The Face would lead to Luxord’s capitulation.  
  
When he saw The Face, it was almost like Roxas and Xion weren’t dead, possibly to never exist because of him. For a moment, he could forget.  
  
Luxord sighed and banished his deck of cards back to their holding dimension. “Fine. One question, one answer!”  
  
Sora hopped in the air, gleeful at his victory, and rushed off to tell Gula the good news. Moments later, he returned with Gula at his heels. The Leopardos Foreteller did not look half as regal as perhaps he should. One sleeve of his robe torn off in the battle with Aced, deep cuts throughout, all of the jeweled tassels around his shawl broken, and his red hair one eye clearly visible through his broken mask.  
  
“Sora tells me you have agreed to answer one question,” the Foreteller said as he stood at an acute angle to Luxord’s position. Prime card-throwing angle for a lethal blow, the Gambler noted.  
  
“That is correct.”  
  
“There must be a story behind how he was able to convince you.” Gula’s tone was flat, direct, carefully tailored so that what he said couldn’t be taken as a question.  
  
Luxord could see the game he was playing a mile off. But it was within the rules he’d set up--and Luxord just couldn’t resist a game. “There is.”  
  
“Perhaps he just has one of those faces.”  
  
“It’s a strong possibility.”  
  
Sora was clearly befuddled, as he watched the two of them trade declarative statements rather than quickly resolve the question and answer arrangement.  
  
“I _know_ I’m fast enough to catch you.” It seemed that Luxord’s ability to repeatedly escape was a sore point on the Foreteller’s pride. This amused Luxord, as there were so many worse things that should have damaged Gula’s pride in his opinion.  
  
“But you’ll never catch me in time.” A hint purposefully dropped. The Gambler was curious to see if Gula would realize it in time. “You haven’t told Sora you can use the keyblade too.”  
  
_That_ got a reaction out of the spiky-haired hero, who whirled on Gula with an expression of shock. Gula’s masked side was to the younger teen, so Sora didn’t see the way his eyes squinted in annoyance.  
  
“He didn’t need to know.”  
  
“On that, we disagree.” Luxord flicked his fingers, and cards appeared in his hand as if they had always been there. “The world is at risk, the Heartless have grown to be an all-consuming horde, and at this moment that boy is one of a handful of people who wield the weapon. He needs all the instruction he can get, from as many sources as he can get, in order to do what needs to be done.” The cards in Luxord’s hand were a new deck--one modeled after the special cards he had captured the Foretellers in. From this, he pulled the Red Joker--a nonmagical counterpart to the card Gula had been trapped in and tossed it down to its original. “That’s why I let you out.”  
  
What he did not say was that _this_ was the perfect time to break the chain. That _this_ was the time when their enemy would have to rely on the momentum of his plans while he was incapacitated. He did not say that the enemy, at last, had died of old age.  
  
“Now ask your question, and go to sleep.”  
  
\--  
The tiger, Shere Khan, hunted her well into the night. She couldn’t fight him for long periods, her magic would run out--and her barrier seemed to be no hindrance to the creature whatsoever. Her magic hurt him, but after he survived three Thundaga spells back to back, she had to guess it was no mortal cat.  
  
He felt like the dweller of darkness she had battled before when she’d been trapped in the realm of darkness. Aqua could feel his eyes on her when their fight would cool off and she would try to find her way through the jungle. And in the brief times when the tiger would attack, he would bound around her magic before charging as the chained beast had done.  
  
At first, she had thought it to be a Heartless of some kind--the creature radiated darkness in both presence and its attacks. But in all its attacks, it made no moves to steal her heart--it seemed far more interested in her life.  
  
Then she discovered its weakness.  
  
The tiger had her trapped against a cliff, by its reckoning. Aqua knew she could survive the fall, but the tiger didn’t--so she let it think it had the upper hand. The Master, tired from her hours-long fight, held an injury on her side to make it appear she was on her last legs.   
  
Shere Khan paced in front of her for a moment, before he folded his ears back, and pounced. And Aqua surrounded herself in a fire to jump into his attack. Shere Khan howled in pain and abandoned his attack at the touch of fire. The cat bounded away, then turned and crouched low to snarl at Aqua. She realized--she had the upper hand at long last, but hours of fighting had exhausted her to the point where she couldn’t capitalize on it how she wished.  
  
A simple Fira spell sent the cat loping into the jungle, with soot and embers trailing off his charred fur. For a moment, it seemed like the danger had passed and Aqua could rest for a little while. But then she heard an ominous clicking noise to her left and saw standing there one of the bandits that had made off with the carriage, pointing a rifle at her. At his side was a handsome man with a smug grin and slicked back hair. Unlike so much of the world, light radiated from the man, who seemed to be a military officer out of uniform.  
  
“Good evening, I’m Captain William Boone,” the man introduced himself and drew a pistol to point at Aqua as well. “And I couldn’t help but notice how you seemed to have a way of driving that tiger off. Would you care to join us at our camp and… share your methods?”  
  
When Aqua looked at him, at that smug smile--for a moment she didn’t see the man who truly stood in front of her, she saw Captain Barbossa, and realized exactly what sort of man she was dealing with. If she had the strength, she would strike him down, but after a day of prolonged fighting, she needed rest.  
  
“As you wish,” the Master tersely replied and walked toward them.  
  
\--  
  
“Where are my friends?”  
  
Luxord had expected a question along the lines of ‘who is the traitor?’ The question Gula had actually leveled at him had been… unexpected. Interestingly unexpected. He casually shifted the cards in his hand then flicked his hand dismissively at the half-masked teen. “You haven’t _got_ friends anymore, Gula. Except for your Chirithy.”  
  
The boy placed one hand on his hip and let the other hang free. “You _know_ what I meant.”  
  
Luxord also happened to know that Gula’s free hand was his _keyblade_ hand, so the threat of violence was implied once more. “And you have my answer. You tried to kill them, and they tried to kill you--what makes you think they still consider you a friend?”  
  
Sora was quiet while the two older men talked. Perhaps he was trying to piece together the story behind these meetings? Or, far more likely, he simply couldn’t follow what was being said without context.  
  
Gula’s free hand clenched, and his annoyed expression deepened under his mask. “Because I was wrong. None of them we traitors, and I got us all hurt for nothing. If they don’t want to be my friends anymore, then that’s their decision. But I’m not going to leave them trapped like… this.” He held up the Red Joker Luxord had thrown at him.  
  
“Even Aced?” Beneath his hood, Luxord arched a brow. The Leopard was acting closer to the Fox or the Unicorn--but he seemed a good enough liar that Luxord couldn’t _know_ he was lying. Bringing up the Foreteller who had the greatest animosity with Gula presented a way to see if he was being genuine.  
  
The Leopard didn’t waste time considering. “Not even Aced. I owe a lot of apologies to him especially. Now, where are they?” If he was lying, Gula had an _impressive_ poker face.  
  
“...They are waiting for the opportune moments to return them to the world. Until each of them has their time, they will reside with me--in darkness.” The Gambler stepped away from the tower’s window he observed the two keyblade wielders from. “You have your answer now go to sleep, you two.”  
  
Down below, the two boys had some talking to do. “I guess I should reintroduce myself,” the masked teen said. “I’m Master Gula, one of the Foretellers and founder of the Leopardos Union.” As if it would prove his point more so, he called forth his keyblade with his free hand. The jagged, lightning-bolt blade and teeth sprouting from the leopard-head guard seemed to impress Sora sufficiently, but Gula was thrown off by the younger boy’s response.  
  
“You’re a Master already?! But you’re barely older than me!” Sora bounced around Gula excitedly, which required Gula turn around multiple times to keep Sora from facing his back. “How’d you do it? Are you like, really smart, or is there some hidden keyblade power that you can unlock?”  
  
“Hard work and a good teacher is how _I_ did it.” The Foreteller returned his keyblade from whence it came and started back toward the campfire. “Maybe, if your teacher doesn’t mind, I can show you some things. Perhaps even stuff your teacher doesn’t know.” He paused, and watched Sora cheer to himself about learning more ‘awesome stuff’, and found himself confused. “Aren’t you mad that I didn’t tell you I could use the keyblade too?”  
  
Sora tilted his head, then shrugged once he straightened it. “I mean, if there were Heartless around I would be. But considering how badly you got beaten up--and what that guy said about your friends… I sort of get it? You were afraid I’d do the same or something?”  
  
Gula elected not to correct Sora on the issue and nodded. “Something, yeah.”  
  
“And another thing… I’m looking for my friends, and Master Aqua’s looking for hers too.” The teen looked over his shoulder at the dozing Goofy and sleeping Donald. “And so are they. We all have missing friends--that’s something we can try fixing together, yeah?”  
  
With his upbeat personality, quick forgiveness, and moving on to common ground, Gula saw in Sora traits he hadn’t since before the Master had vanished. He saw in Sora, Luxu of all people. Luxu who was probably thousands of years dead, if his guess on _when_ this was in relation to the Keyblade War was correct.  
  
“Yeah.” Gula nodded and started off toward the campfire. “How about you tell me about your missing friends, and I’ll tell you about mine?”  
  
\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sora, and Gula both have cat associations--Sora with lions, Gula with leopards. Wonder if they'll get along or try to kill each other at some point. Given this is Kingdom Hearts, they might do both.


	22. King of Tigers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aqua's adventures through the Black Jungle continues

\----- **Chapter 22:**  King of Tigers.  
  
  
Aqua was brought to a rough camp in the jungle. All in all, it was a fire and some pressed down areas for sleeping. More men with guns were there, and with the whole group there Aqua deigned to learn the difference. The bandit with Captain Boone was called Buldeo, a jackal-looking man in black with a hat made of wrapped fabric. There were two other military men, a burly giant who answered to Harley, and a jumpy ginger called Wilkins. And finally, a man Aqua instantly identified as a mercenary—Tabaqui, they called him. When he looked at her, she could tell he saw a threat—and she, in turn, saw the same in him.  
  
  
He would need to be the first one taken out before the others could be destroyed.  
  
  
Aqua was escorted over to where the captives were held, Mowgli tied to a tree and two military personnel were allowed to sit free. An older man, his clothes stained with blood and bandaged about the head, while a dark-haired woman tended to him. Aqua was made to sit opposite them, with her back against a tree.  
  
  
“You’re alive,” the woman exclaimed. “We saw you get attacked by that tiger—Shere Khan. No one  _ever_  gets away from him.”  
  
  
“Turns out he doesn’t care for fire,” Aqua quipped and rested her hand on her clawed side. Come the morning, she could heal and Esuna the injury into perfect condition but until then it was a distraction she could ill afford.  
  
  
“I don’t suppose—Mowgli said how you were a healer, and he somehow fixed my father’s injuries.” The lady, possibly older than Aqua but far more girlish, looked between the Master and the bound Mowgli, and the downed man. “But he has this fever, I’m worried it might be an infection--”  
  
  
“Healing powers didn’t fix all the way, still, new,” Mowgli defended himself while their captors watched.  
  
  
A day of fighting an immortal enemy had drained Aqua, and all the magic she kept using would delay her ability to return to fighting condition. But after she rejoined the battle, she had no idea if she’d ever return to help. “Am I allowed to help him?” Aqua asked of her captors.  
  
  
Captain Boone had sat near the fire, somehow conveying unadulterated, pure smugness in every expression and movement—like Xehanort, she realized. “Go ahead,” the Captain responded. “I look forward to seeing where you keep your medicine.”  
  
  
Wilkins pretended to chuckle at Boone’s vile joke. But no one else said anything.  
  
  
With permission granted, Aqua stood again and crossed the gap to the lady and her father. “I’m Aqua, and who are you two?”  
  
  
“I’m Katherine Brydon,” the lady introduced herself. “And this is my father, Colonel Brydon.” With venom, she glared over to the military men who held them against their will. “He was their commanding officer.”  
  
  
Aqua’s Scan of Colonel Brydon told her it was a simple bit of lead poisoning. She bent down and touched his bandages with her fingertips, and cast an Esuna upon the man. A brief white glow enveloped the Colonel, and when it passed he seemed no worse for wear. “When he wakes up, he’ll be hale and hearty again. Don’t worry.”  
  
  
–  
  
  
Wolves decided to sing to the captors and captives as the night wore on. Aqua had no problems with it, but it was amusing to watch Wilkins annoy Harley about the noise. They seemed to think Mowgli had some power over the wolves, and his refuting such almost set Wilkins off in a panic attack.  
  
  
But, tired as she was, she still fell asleep.  
  
  
And woke up in a Dive to the Heart.  
  
  
She was falling through an abyss, toward a pillar topped with a stained glass floor depicting… not herself. The Dive to the Heart was always supposed to depict the reflection of the wielder’s heart as seen by the keyblade. Most commonly, it was a sleeping image of the wielder reclining against the border of the scene.  
  
  
But the image she saw was of a red-haired girl—the same she had seen in Merlin’s cavern. And while she leaned against the edge of the scene, she wasn’t alone—Aqua was there too, right beside her. Aqua’s figure was asleep, while Kairi’s was awake. The rest of the rose window depicted flowers, tropical shells, and images of Sora, another boy Aqua guessed to be Riku, Ventus, Terra, and Master Eraqus.  
  
  
‘How am I diving into Kairi’s heart? Is she trying to contact me?’  
  
  
Once the falling section of the Dive was done, the force of gravity reversed so that she would gently land upon the glass surface. It was then that Aqua realized she wasn’t in control of herself—that she wasn’t in her body at all. The eyes she looked through were of a shorter person, and the hands that came into view were foreign to her.  
  
  
 _Power sleeps within you..._  
  
  
Three stone podiums rose up from the glass surface, equidistant from each other. They moved through the glass as if by magic and carried with them the three weapons representing the three paths open to keyblade wielders.  
  
  
The staff, representing the Mage. The shield, representing the Guardian. And the sword, representing the Warrior. No prizes for which Aqua had chosen on her first Dive.  
  
  
But the weapons each bore an image on them—visible even from the center of the glass pillar. On the shield was Sora’s smiling face, while the sword bore Riku’s image in a disk at the base of the blade, and Aqua’s face floated in an orb at the end of the staff.  
  
  
 _If you give it shape… it will help you. Fear not—others have walked the paths before you. No matter what you choose, you will have someone to guide you._  
  
  
‘Why am I seeing this? Why can’t I move my body?’ These thoughts Aqua wished she could speak, but her mouth wouldn’t move.  
  
  
“Typical boys,” she said instead, in a voice definitely  _not_  hers. “Go for the things to hit people with.” Aqua’s body walked of its own volition and went right for the staff. “Shere Khan thinks you stole my heart—so he’s trying to free me from you, and this is my body. Well—not my body really, but same difference.”  
  
  
Aqua realized the person through whom she watched the scene had heard her thoughts. A moment of intense thought helped her connect the dots. Kairi!  
  
  
“Bingo.” Kairi’s hands reached out and touched the staff with Aqua’s image inside. “My heart is with you—because the Heartless couldn’t make something out of it.”  
  
  
 _The power of the Mystic. Great insight, a staff of wonder and ruin. This is the power you choose?_  
  
  
“Yes.” With her acceptance, the platforms faded away, as did the unchosen weapons. The staff, meanwhile, vanished from Kairi’s hands and was replaced with a new weapon. A keyblade, Aqua realized quickly—made of white metal with angelic wings for its guard, and a pair of blades making up the shaft. The keychain was a Wayfinder, Aqua noticed in astonishment, made out of seashells. “I thought—maybe if you showed Shere Khan this, he’d realize I’m not your prisoner?”  
  
  
Kairi swung the weapon around, and to Aqua’s perspective, it was light as a feather. “I’m letting you borrow this, okay? Don’t break it... please.” As suddenly as it appeared, the keyblade vanished.  
  
  
And the dream was over.  
  
  
\--  
  
  
Aqua was roused by the barrel of a gun being repeatedly jabbed into her shoulder, and Buldeo’s less than pleasant face. “We’re moving, you will keep Shere Khan away.”  
  
  
She learned, in the space of a few short minutes, that Mowgli had escaped, and that Harley had tried to catch him. For his trouble, the burly man was lost to a pool of quicksand. Colonel Brydon had been abandoned by their captors, leaving Katherine distraught.  
  
  
While they moved through the jungle, the point of doing so Aqua was still in the dark about, she healed herself. She used a lot of basic Cure spells rather than their more powerful counterparts, to better ration her magic. The Regen spell she had learned from Cinderella so long ago also helped.  
  
  
“So how is it done?” Captain Boone asked, after hours of walking through the jungle. “How did you drive away that tiger?”  
  
  
“Shere Khan,” Katherine and Buldeo corrected the captain at almost the same time. “King of tigers.”  
  
  
“Like most people who have common sense,” Aqua drawled, “Shere Khan doesn’t like being set on fire. That’s about the long and short of it.”  
  
  
Captain Boone stopped, turned, and looked at Aqua while he held his gun next to his head. “Really? That’s all? How then did you… get all that fire you used on him, hmm?”  
  
  
Disgust with the man fought with her desire to punch him square in the face, and against her knowledge that she wasn’t yet ready to fight men with guns  _and_  Shere Khan. “Why do you think I’m dressed like this?” Aqua shrugged. “It’s not because I love mosquitos, you know.”  
  
  
Tabaqui had snuck off, neither Boone his minions had noticed, but Aqua had. The man had seen something in the jungle and went off after it. This meant that only Boone, Wilkins, and Buldeo were left to keep Katherine and Aqua in line. But with a little magic, perhaps that could change in their favor.  
  
  
They came to a waterfall not too long after that and were crossing along the perimeter of the pool when noise drew their attention upwards. Mowgli and Tabaqui were fighting, hand to hand, at the top of the waterfall. Katherine cheered for Mowgli’s victory, while the men were silent. But Aqua knew this wasn’t a friendly match between men, but that one of them would end up dead.  
  
  
She refused to let it be Mowgli.  
  
  
So when Tabaqui had the momentary advantage and looked to end it by picking up a rock to smash Mowgli, she acted. “He really should mind… the Wind.” A sudden gale kicked up around them, collected dirt and leaves to become a visible twister, and spiraled off upward to the men.  
  
  
Mowgli, on the ground, was able to roll to escape. But Tabaqui had been holding the rock aloft and didn’t realize the danger until too late. The whirlwind buffeted him and at its peak lifted him off his feet and sent him over the edge. The Keyblade Master had seen people slain before, she had fought with the intent to kill before. But she realized, as Tabaqui screamed his last before he met his end on the rocks below, that she had not killed before.  
  
  
The lack of concern she had for the dead man concerned her.  
  
  
“Well,” Katherine quipped, while the men looked at the remains in shock. “We mustn’t get upset over every little thing. Carry on.” And she started off into the jungle on her own. A moment later, Aqua joined her.  
  
  
It took a moment for the men to catch up and in that time, Aqua brushed her hand over Katherine’s shoulder and imparted a basic understanding of the Fire spell. “Use it to defend yourself if you need to,” she whispered to Katherine. “Shere Khan is still out there, somewhere.”  
  
  
As they walked, Aqua tried to call on the keyblade. It was foolish to think that Kairi, a girl she had only briefly met, had the power to wield the weapon and could somehow allow Aqua to borrow hers. But still, the absence of either her keyblade or the Master’s gnawed at her. Like a piece of her was missing.  
  
  
It shouldn’t have been like that at all, she realized. The keyblade was part of her heart--she should have been able to call on it from anywhere in the realm of light if it still existed. Perhaps Stormfall had met the same end as Master’s Defender--broken on killing the Heartless. Ten years had passed, and anything could have happened.  
  
  
But the keyblade wasn’t an obedient dog, to come when called. It had a mind of its own, a will. Perhaps the weapon did not come because it didn’t wish to. Which led to another reason why Aqua doubted the dream--even if Kairi had wished to loan her keyblade to Aqua, the weapon itself had to agree.  
  
  
\--  
  
  
The Captain’s goal, it seemed, had been achieved. They had arrived at a stone city, with many statues depicting monkeys and the sound of such animals audible even from outside the walls. Aqua realized it was the city she had sent Sora and the King’s men off to when they first departed.  
  
  
“This is what you’ve walked through the jungle for? What you’ve had men die for? A crumbling ruin?”  
  
  
Aqua’s tone of scathing criticism put a crack in Captain Boone’s smug facade, which the warning roar of Shere Khan seconds later all but shattered. He was close--close enough that Aqua knew she should have been able to sense his eyes. But she couldn’t.  
  
  
“Shere Khan!” Buldeo exclaimed, turned, and brandished his rifle at the jungle. Behind him, the monkeys in the city ruin began to scream and sound alarms.  
  
  
“What the devil are they doing?” Wilkins, stupidly, asked after the monkey noises began to grow distant.  
  
  
“They run from Shere Khan!” Buldeo spoke like Wilkins was an idiot for asking such a question, and ran from the party in his fright. Aqua paid him no heed, he would die on his own with Shere Khan nearby.  
  
  
Boone pointing his pistol at Katherine and trying to force her to leave with him, however, she could help. “Let her go,” she told him with menace. Wilkins was lost in his panic attack, with thoughts only for his fear.  
  
  
Boone seemed to have forgotten Aqua was with him and turned to point his pistol at her. This created a brief conflict within him, as any time he took his pistol off one of the women, the other would either try to escape or advance on him.  
  
  
“Wilkins! Wilkins, help me, damn you!”  
  
  
But the roar of Shere Khan, as if right on top of them, sent the ginger man running in the opposite direction. And in the confusion, Katherine swiped at Boone’s head--her hand covering itself in flames as she did, and knocked the man senseless.  
  
  
“Run, for the city!” Aqua told Katherine while Boone recoiled. “My friends are inside, they’ll help you!”  
  
  
It was fortunate that Katherine headed her immediately, for seconds later Boone exploded in blinding light that sent Aqua flying away from him.  _”How dare you strike me!”_  When she got back to her feet, she saw the man, shining as if he were the sun, and running toward the city.  
  
  
From the jungle, languid as if he hadn’t a care in the world, Shere Khan stepped between her and the fleeing locals. Blood dripped from his maw. Their eyes met, and Aqua could see something in them. Outrage, mostly.  
  
  
A column of light surrounded her sword hand, and a second later, a keyblade floated there--waiting for her to seize it. On instinct she did, and its name rolled across her mind. Oathkeeper. The dream, Kairi, all of it was true!  
  
  
“I did not steal her heart,” Aqua said to the King of Tigers. “Here stands a part of her heart, helping me of its own will.”  
  
  
But either Shere Khan did not believe her or did not understand. For the tiger glowered at her. Darkness collected on the predator, like an aura, and he roared once more. It seemed another fight was necessary.  
  
  
Shere Khan lept at her, and she swung the keyblade to meet him. Tooth and blade clashed, and the sound of metal on metal filled Aqua’s ears. This was the first sign she got that something profoundly wrong was the matter with Shere Khan.  
  
  
The second was when he vomited forth volleys of dark projectiles, in a manner she had seen only Terra use in her last fight with him. Oathkeeper shone with light as she deflected the projectiles into the ground and air. With a keyblade, she could hammer Shere Khan repeatedly with her highest magic, for the weapon would renew her energy.  
  
  
And thus, she could personally introduce Shere Khan to a friend of hers: Mega Flare.  
  
  
The explosion leveled trees all around them, the explosion echoed in the valleys created by the ruined city’s buildings. And when the smoke cleared, she saw something odd about Shere Khan. His fur had burned away around his head and shoulders, revealing gleaming metal that resembled a tiger’s fur underneath. With a pained growl, the keeper of the jungle visibly regrew his fur and whiskers before returning to combat.  
  
  
Every time they met, it was the sound of metal on metal that Aqua noticed. It wasn’t long before Shere Khan began to show unnatural shapeshifting powers--he turned his tail into a long whip and his stripes into spikes along it to flail her. He opened his mouth so wide it spread to his shoulders and into his chest in order to fire enormous dark volleys at her.  
  
  
Why did all this happen in this particular fight, she wondered. If he had used these powers on her before, she would be dead. The fight had gone so well for her, that the energy of the keyblade manifested itself around Aqua as Bladecharge, and Oathkeeper’s short range became a non-issue.  
  
  
Her heart stirred in her chest, and a memory floated up.  _’For when equal powers clash, their true nature is revealed.”_  Master Eraqus’ frequent koan when she and Terra dueled. But this confused her even more--all that had changed was that she had a keyblade--  
  
  
A ridiculous idea struck her as Shere Khan paused in his assault on her. She kept it quiet, for Shere Khan was not known for conversation.  
  
  
It seemed that their fight had convinced Shere Khan of the truth to Aqua’s words. While the ruined section of the jungle around them smoldered, their eyes met again--and Aqua saw no outrage in them.  
  
  
As quickly as he’d appeared, Shere Khan left. He just turned and started to walk away.  
  
  
 _Remember._  
  
  
A voice rolled through Aqua’s thoughts. Oathkeeper left her the moment Shere Khan had turned away, or else she would have thought the keyblade was speaking to her.  
  
  
 _Steal not from the jungle. Steal not from the World. And long life will come to you._  
  
  
She stared after the retreating back of Shere Khan and pondered her theory. At least, she did until she remembered Boone was, at the moment, chasing Katherine and would be likely encountering Sora soon. Then she ran for the ruins.  
  
\---  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've ever wondered what they get up to before they pick someone, here's a case study.


	23. As was Foretold.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My one regret is that I couldn't name Philip's Nobody Lipstix.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dangit, why you gotta be so extra?

  
  
\---- **Chapter 23:** As was Foretold.  
  
In a castle of white metal, floating above a dark city, a gathering took place. In a room near the donjon of the castle were gravestones--enchanted to allow transportation to a designated area of the castle set aside for the owner’s use, and to indicate this they glowed blue with inner magic. All except one. The topmost gravestone shone red and was the cause of the gathering.  
  
Those that were gathered wore all black leather--coats, gloves, trousers, and boots enchanted to resist the corrosive power of darkness. Some had hoods up, some did not--it was their preference. They waited in silence and watched the gravestone pulse.  
  
Soon enough, a figure stepped through. Tall, powerful in build and bearing, and with his hood down to reveal jagged silver hair and orange eyes. In one hand he held a weapon--a keyblade of dark metal that vanished in a black cloud after a moment. “It is true,” said the man. “The Seeker of Darkness is dead. His shell finally collapsed in on itself from the strain of nonexistence.”  
  
“What happens next?” A woman, of average height, slim build, and excessively long silver-blonde hair spoke up. Though she was as empty as all the rest, she spoke aggressively, and exasperated. “We have work to do--the old man hadn’t taken any missions in years, and that blockade is finally out of the way.”  
  
“You are correct. Return to your duties. There are at least two human-form Nobodies at large in Twilight Town, they must be recovered before they do harm to the locals.” The recruiters left immediately, disappearing by way of portals into the corridors of darkness. “Number five, could I have a word with you?”  
  
As the others left the gathering, one figure walked to the front. A man, straight-backed and wearing his coat cut in a most unusual way. Once he was within conversation distance of the silver-haired man, he pulled down his hood. With so many extraordinary members of the Organization, the brown-haired almost aggressively normal looking Lipphix stood out.  
  
“I found, in the Seeker’s files, mentions of a Keyblade Master in your reports.” Impassive, there was no inkling of any outrage or distrust or outrage in the silver-haired man’s voice. “A woman with blue hair. ...Did I not ask that any sightings of her be brought to me?”  
  
Lipphix was far more emotive and pretended to be anxious about the question in expression and body language. “The Seeker… he ordered otherwise, and that I tell no one. You know how he gets… got when he was disobeyed.”  
  
The other Organizer was unmoved by such, but the reasoning was sound. “I see. He did not document that aspect. I have a proposition for you, then.” The man snapped his fingers and produced a manila envelope from a dark cloud. “I have a mission to locate and retrieve the empty shell of a Princess of Heart, then bring it to the cloister with the others. But I have no desire to go to Castle Oblivion so soon after the last expedition.”  
  
Lipphix’s eyes remained transfixed on the folder. The other man knew that the opportunity to see the love of his previous self, even her empty shell, would be too good for the Knight of Thorns to pass up. “And in exchange you want…?”  
  
“In exchange, you will officially transfer her case over to me.”  
  
Without hesitation, Lipphix produced a similar manilla folder and the two were exchanged. The Knight turned and created a portal of darkness from which to leave the scene, but paused. “Are you going to ask her about the Chamber of Waking?”  
  
“Perhaps. If she is… amenable to working with the Organization.” The silver-haired man paused and then pretended to smile. “And if she can forgive us for taking over her house while she was away.”  
  
“Alright. Good luck, Extrra.” Then the Knight left and left the silver-haired man alone with the case file for the Keyblade Master.  
  
Extrra looked over the few pictures available of the Master and her student. Attached was a report from their spy in the Moogle Conclave, and a picture of six star-shaped charms in a variety of colors and two distinct symbols at their centers. From within his coat, the Organizer produced a light brown star-shaped charm with the symbol of the Keyblade Masters of old at its center. As well as the charms, Wayfinders was a picture of the shattered remains of a keyblade. The one the blue-haired woman had been observed using.  
  
“Perhaps it would be best… if I approached her with a replacement weapon first.”  
  
\--  
  
“Gula, this really, _really_ hurts.”  
  
“Deep breaths and practice will help fix that. Watch how Goofy and the monkeys are doing it, and you’ll figure it out.”  
  
“I think I’m stuck.”  
  
Gula sighed in frustration and stopped his stretching to stand up and get Sora untangled for the third time that day. “It will get easier, but you have to do these stretches and exercises every day.” The Foreteller popped Sora’s back into proper alignment and returned to his exercises. “The Keyblade is an adaptable weapon, its wielders need to be just as flexible.”  
  
Sora sheepishly looked around at Goofy and the several monkeys that had joined their stretching practice. Donald sat cross-legged and floated slightly off the ground until a monkey threw a pebble at him. Once more, he tried to mimic how they stretched--in the hopes of a payoff of neat abilities later on.  
  
The quiet was shattered by a roar that echoed through the city. All at once, the monkeys began to scream and run away. Sora jumped to his feet too quickly and keeled over from a cramp in his thigh. Goofy and Gula had no such problems. Everywhere around them, monkeys fled from the origin point of the roar, screaming as if they end-times were upon them.  
  
Out from the shadow of a nearby monkey-faced entrance hall, Luxord emerged. “My time babysitting you lot is over and done with.” A tubular portal of creeping darkness opened up behind him, which Sora felt inexplicably drawn to. “Give Aqua my regards. I’ll see you again… next time.”  
  
“Wait!” Gula shouted, and seemed to vanish in a streak of yellow light toward the Organizer. But he stepped into the portal and vanished before Gula could make contact. The Foreteller had to make a wide turn to avoid crashing into a wall, and when he was still he made a sound of annoyance in his throat.  
  
\--  
  
Rould had wandered the forest for days. He didn’t know why--he didn’t care that it was cold at night, that there could be things to kill and eat him, or that he felt like he was starting to starve. Rould couldn’t muster the strength to care about much of anything anymore. The suit he’d been wearing, a rig for fixing solar sails--something he used to be so proud of, had gone to tatters from his blundering through the foliage.  
  
Memories came to him in bursts. An ex-wife, a son, ships that sailed the stars. Feelings, ideas, thoughts. And none of them got a spark of emotion from him as he walked. In retrospect, the fact that he felt nothing for his son even before the attack by those bizarre monsters probably made him an arse.  
  
Something strange caught his eye. An oblong tube of darkness, and a man in a ridiculous black coat who appeared when it vanished--this got Rould to stop and watch. But he couldn’t care enough to speak.  
  
“Hello, Rould.” The coated man spoke with his voice, amicable--like he’d found an old friend. Without prompting, the man approached Rould and threw an arm across his shoulders. “I know you’re busy walking aimlessly, so I just have a quick request and then I’ll let you get back to it.”  
  
“Fine,” Rould said, monotone.  
  
The man who spoke with Rould’s voice produced two dice between his fingers, clenched his hand, and began to shake. After a minute, he stopped. “I propose a wager. My time against yours. I throw the dice, then you. Whoever gets the highest total amount wins.” Without prompting, the man opened his hand to reveal a one and two. “Oh gosh, I got a three. Your turn.”  
  
Rould took the dice and shook them once in his hand before opening it up. “... Snake eyes,” he muttered. Over the course of a few seconds, Rould aged rapidly--becoming middle-aged, then elderly, until all that was left of him were dust-filled clothes.  
  
“I would apologize, but we both know you deserved that, old boy.”  
  
\--  
  
Gula’s almost-tantrum over Luxord getting away was cut short by a woman. Specifically, a woman who ran through the city, away from a man who shone with blinding light.  
  
“Help!” Cried the woman, and soon found shelter behind Goofy and his shield.  
  
“We got ya, miss,” the Guard Captain exclaimed. And immediately his resolve was tested by the man enveloped in light fired a weapon--some sort of gun, no one could see it clearly--empowered by the light. Goofy’s shield held, but the force of the impact sent Goofy skidding ten feet backward.  
  
“I’ve come too far to be dealing with this, Katherine!” The blinding man spoke, his accent refined even though he spoke in absolutely hateful tones. “You’re mine! The treasure is mine! And then this whole country will be mine!”  
  
Sora, Gula, Donald, and Goofy found these declarations irrational and conveyed their criticism of the man’s ideas through the true universal language: Violence. But the man was immune to criticism--except Sora’s. It hurt to get close enough to hit the man, but Sora’s smacks with the Kingdom Key actually hurt the man--which not even Gula could claim.  
  
The man’s light brightened and created an explosion that knocked back the keyblade wielder hitting him repeatedly about the head. Of course, the boulevard in which this battle took place was old, unmaintained, and not built to withstand such explosions. In hindsight, it was no wonder why the explosion caused the street to fall in on itself.  
  
“Drift!” Gula and Donald exclaimed as they fell. The two spells swept over the debris, people, and unfortunate monkeys that had been falling. All except the light-covered man found their descent slowed or outright halted. Below the street, through many layers of tunnels, was a vast chamber.  
  
A small stream ran through the room, with bridges built to cross in places, and every surface was piled high with treasure. As if stricken with glee and madness all at once, the man below began to laugh once he stood and realized where he was. Then Sora and Gula leaping amongst the floating rocks to rescue their friends, the woman who had begotten the battle, and the monkeys drew his attention.  
  
Whereupon he began to shoot at them once more. His light-empowered bullets shattered stone when they hit, and necessitated the teens be speedy in their movements. Sora watched, in horror and amazement as the light around the man brightened, and began to turn gold rather than white.  
  
In an instant, the man was no longer surrounded in blinding light--but appeared to be made of gold from his hairs to the leather of his boots. Even his pistol seemed gilded. He paused to wonder at his new complexion and smirked at the woman--who currently floated among several monkeys clinging to Sora.  
  
“See now, Katherine?! This heathen magic has chosen me! I’m a man of solid gold!”  
  
“Wrong.” Another man appeared, stepping out of the long shadows cast by the first’s golden radiance. He was swiftly named as Mowgli by Katherine, who Sora suspected might be his girlfriend from how she grinned to see him. It was a sort of ‘kick his butt’ expression. “You aren’t a man anymore. Your heart belongs to gold--and now you are too.”  
  
The golden man levied his pistol at Mowgli and appeared tickled pink as he pulled the trigger. But there was no cacophonous bang, no projectile, and no light augmentation. The hammer didn’t even move. Whatever glee the man had before shifted into anger and confusion. “What in the devil--how is the trigger _bent_?!” His examination of the pistol did not help Sora’s confusion on the topic either. “Where did this dent in my finger come from?”  
  
“Gold is soft. And heavy.” Mowgli had no pity for the other man and evaded a slow, cumbersome attempt to throw the pistol at him with ease. Neither the man or the projectile could go very fast. The golden pistol skidded into the water long before it posed a risk of striking Mowgli or anyone. “And doesn’t float in water.”  
  
Suddenly Mowgli moved. He ran for the wall of the chamber and climbed upward on the edges and carvings along its facade. There, he lept up onto one of the floating stones and seized nearby debris at the golden man. The golden man was too slow to dodge, and his arms dented and deformed from the force of the rock's impact. Each blow drove him slightly back.  
  
This proved a suitable signal that the golden man could be harmed normally again--and he soon found himself struck repeatedly by keyblades, magic, and a thrown shield. Until at last, he was pushed to the edge of the stream and began to tip. He couldn’t open his mouth fast enough to scream his last before he fell beneath the water.  
  
No bubbles floated up from below once the water settled again.  
  
There was a moment of cheering amongst the combatants that was swiftly ruined by Donald spotting his and Goofy’s hats, and an attempt to retrieve them that ended when the spell which allowed them to float began to dissipate.  
\---  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When you fall to Darkness, the Darkness makes you its puppet. When you fall to Light, the Light gives you what you want in the worst way possible.
> 
> He's not dead, by the way. He'll stay fully alive and aware until the water erodes him into dust.


	24. Sidestory: Meet Axel

 

 

\----Sidestory: Meet Axel.

 

“Alright, so this is really weird looking, I know.  But it’s actually how we get to and from this secret world without letting the Heartless know about it.”

 

Luxord did a masterful impression of himself in the past, watching as his old friend held out a star-shaped Gummi block with one broken edge.  His friend was the only other extant member of the clocktower quartet: Axel.

 

Tall, lanky, with excessively spiked red hair and teardrop tattoos under his eyes--Axel looked nothing like the assassination specialist of the Organization.  Axel’s upbeat personality also made him an excellent trainer for new recruits--as Luxord impersonated.  In his time, their first mission together had been to scout out the Heartless equivalent to the Organization’s fortress world.  The Organization’s World that Never Was and the Heartless’ End of the World were twins--a Nobody and Heartless world made from the pieces of worlds that had fallen to darkness.

 

With Luxord’s meddling, things would take a slightly different route it seemed--the Organization’s new leader, the Superior, was sending them to retrieve keyblades from the Keyblade Graveyard.

 

“Why is it so important that the Heartless not know about it?”  Luxord asked, and feigned being new to pretending to emote for the sake of his charade.

 

“My my, asking the big questions already!  Maybe you’ll be made part of the strategist group once your probation’s off.”  Axel grinned and tossed the Star Shard up and down while he spoke.  “There’s this thing called Kingdom Hearts--basically a heart for hearts.  And this world happens to be where it is.  The Heartless grab it, and they win.  We don’t want them to win.  Got it memorized?”

 

Luxord nodded and put his hand over the Star Shard.  The two of them were enveloped by the magical effect of the Shard--which allowed transit between worlds.  How the Organization had come to possess it, he had no idea--the next time to Book of Prophecies mentioned it was in reference to King Mickey.  When the Shard was done bouncing them around through the ether, the two Organizers emerged on a barren wasteland of rock plateaus and valleys.

 

The Keyblade Graveyard.

 

It seemed like yesterday that Luxord had watched the battle that earned the Graveyard its name--since he had watched the X-blade destroy itself in the paradox of a Kingdom Hearts split in twain.  But in reality, it had been thousands of years since that day--and all the keyblades in the graveyard were dead.

 

“Oh, by the way.”  Axel paused in leading the ‘newbie’ across the badlands toward the Graveyard proper.  “There’s this… thing on the way there.  Looks like a suit of armor, has a living keyblade with it.”  The pyromaniac turned and outright glared at Luxord.  “It can’t see us unless we interact with it.  And we’re not going to be doing that.  Alright?”

 

“I take it this ‘thing’ as you eloquently put it is powerful?”  Luxord let the forced difficulty of emoting slip a little, to show progress on the skill he’d already mastered.

 

“Yeah.  It could nix the both of us like,” Axel snapped his fingers.  “I’m not joking--that’s what happened to the old number five; a big guy with an ax-sword.  Destroyed in one hit.  We’re going to avoid poking that thing with any sticks, no arguing.”  Axel’s speed and Luxord’s ability to dilate time to mimic speed were necessary to dodge the hazards of the graveyard: Whirlwinds filled to the brim with negative emotions, a wind so strong that a torrent of keyblade corpses was trapped within, and perfectly natural hazards due to geography.

 

The sky was overcast, and Luxord knew that was purely to mask the presence of Kingdom Hearts.  Without the X-blade to act as its defender, the Heart of All Worlds had to resort to deception to remain safe.  But the clouds made it difficult to examine each keyblade in the Graveyard to make sure they were dead, Nobodies had no special skill at seeing in the dark.

 

In the end, the effort of wading through literal miles of dead weapons proved wasted.  At the center of the crossroads that split the Graveyard into four quadrants were three living keyblades thrust into the ground near each other.  All Luxord knew about them was that they hadn’t been present at the Departure trio’s confrontation with Xehanort.

 

One resembled the Kingdom Key, in a simple guard and shaft design--but with blue and gold in lieu of gold and silver.  Its teeth were shaped like a hollow star, and that allowed Luxord to recognize it as the once common keyblade of Daybreak Town’s adventurers.  Another resembled a sword, with an ogre’s face in the guard and a jug of sake as the keychain.  The third seemed to be a dragon spitting out a tongue of stylized flames which became the shaft and teeth of a keyblade.

 

“So this is where he put ‘em,” Axel muttered.  “Look, don’t touch the handle okay?  Keyblades don’t mind being handled or moved around--but you touch the handle and they’ll zip right off.  The guard’s risky too.”  Without further ado, Axel took the shaft of the dragon-flame keyblade in one hand and yanked it from the ground.

 

“How am I supposed to grab this one?  It’s flat.  And who is this ‘he’ to whom you refer?”  Luxord had no trouble picking up the star-themed keyblade, but the sword-like one proved annoying both in dimensions, weight, and sharpness.

 

“I ain’t gonna tell ya, this is your opportunity to prove you can do what the boss expects even in unpleasant situations.”  Naturally, Axel spun the dragon-themed keyblade like a baton while Luxord continued to struggle.  All that stopped when the ‘new’ number ten grabbed the sword-like weapon by the keychain and token and began to _drag_ the keyblade behind him.  “Huh.  I’m impressed.  Guess you earned an answer to your question.”

 

Axel told Luxord a story while they bounced around in the Shard’s magic.  In this timeline, Mickey had taken three students of his own after Radiant Garden went pear-shaped.  A grizzled old warrior who called himself a Guardian who would go on to become a short-lived Master. The King’s brother was another--a rabbit of all things. And the third was a woman who had impersonated a soldier to save her family.  The first two had apparently _died_ , while the woman had her heart stolen by the Heartless.  Her Nobody hadn’t joined the Organization, but become one of the guardians of the Princesses of Hearts’ empty husks.

 

“The Seeker had a weakness for pretty women, as it turned out,” Axel informed Luxord when they emerged back in the Castle.  “A guy says ‘no’ to joining the Organization, he’d take their head off--saw that happen once.  But the girls can say no, they can ask favors, they can even talk back a little.  ...Heh, I keep using present tense for that old creep, a force of habit I guess.”

 

“Perhaps you should get it memorized?”

 

Axel pretended to find the quip funny for a time until the scraping of the Guardian’s keyblade on the metal floor of the Castle that Never Was became irritating.

\---

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short little sidestory to basically infodump on y'all and help me get in the practice of writing Axel and Luxord's interactions.


End file.
